Immigration toGhana is managed by theGhana Immigration Service (GIS).[1][2][3] Ghana a country located at the western part of the African continent with a population of 28.83 million and gained independence on 6 March 1957.
The Ghanaian government has most recently reviewed its immigration policy, as its intention is to increase immigration ofskilled labour.[4][5]
Askilled worker is anyworker who has specialskill, training,knowledge, and (usually acquired)ability in theirwork. A skilled worker may have attended acollege,university ortechnical school. Or, a skilled worker may have learned theirskills on thejob. Examples of skilled labor includeengineers,software development,paramedics,police officers,soldiers,physicians, crane operators, truck drivers,machinist, drafters,plumbers,craftsmen,cooks andaccountants. These workers can be eitherblue-collar orwhite-collar workers, with varied levels of training or education. Ghana has askilled worker immigration policy aimed at creating a highly skilled and knowledgeable Ghanaian population, capable of creating wealth for Ghana and rapidly increasing the Ghanaian economyGDP output;[6] and has recruited highly skilled professional experts in the fields ofinformation and communications technology,manufacturing,health care,construction,finance andbanking,retailing and theoil and gas industry sectors of the Ghanaian economy.[6]
Skilled worker immigrants in Ghana include Indian, South Korean, Japanese, Malaysian, Cuban, Lebanese, Chinese, German and Dutch nationals and however after seven years as Ghanaianpermanent residents with theGhana Cardpermanent residency; skilled workers have gone on to become Ghanaian nationals.[7][8] Since 2012, Ghana has also had its highly professional skilled worker expatriates returning from thediaspora back to Ghana.[9]
Lydia Frances Polgreen (born 1975) is a journalist, who is theeditor-in-chief ofHuffPost. She was previously the editorial director of NYT Global atThe New York Times, and the West Africa bureau chief for the same publication, based inDakar, Senegal, from 2005–2009. She won many awards, most recently the Livingston award in 2009.[10] She also reported from India.[11][12] She was then based in Johannesburg, South Africa where she wasThe New York Times Johannesburg Bureau Chief. As reported by the journalistLydia Polgreen in aNew York Times article, the fact that Ghanaian slave exports to the Americas were so important between the 16th and 19th centuries means that Ghana currently is trying to attract African slave descendants from theAmericas in order that they settle there, and so that they return to make the country the new home to many descendants of the Ghanaian diaspora – though not all are of Ghanaian descent. Accordingly, as reported by Valerie Papaya Mann, president of the African American Association of Ghana, thousands of African Americans are already now living in Ghana, at least for part of the year. To encourage migration or visits by the descendants of enslaved Africans from the Americas, Ghana decided in 2005 to offer them a special visa and grant them Ghanaian passports.[13]
The history ofAfrican Americans in Ghana goes back to individuals such as American civil rights activist and writerW. E. B. Du Bois, who settled in Ghana in the last years of his life and is buried in the capitalAccra. Since then, other African Americans who are descended from slaves imported from areas within the present-day jurisdiction of Ghana and neighboring states have applied for permanent resident status in Ghana. As of 2015, the number of African-American residents has been estimated at around 3,000 people, a large portion of whom live in Accra.
According to the Ghana Statistics Service 375,000 of the Ghanaresident population were born outside Ghana, representing 2.5% of the total Ghana resident population. In 2010 Census, European-born population was 14,295 in which some of them could be children of Ghanaians living in Europe.[7]
| Country | 2012 |
|---|---|
 Togo | 142,688 |
 Nigeria | 57,056 |
 Ivory Coast | 46,058 |
 Liberia | 20,056 |
 Benin | 19,502 |
 Niger | 9,205 |
 Mali | 7,819 |
 United Kingdom | 2,117 |
 Sierra Leone | 1,939 |
 Lebanon | 1,142 |
 India | 989 |
 United States | 952 |
 Canada | 320 |
 Netherlands | 284 |
 Italy | 268 |
 China | 264 |
 France | 254 |
 Switzerland | 227 |
 Guinea | 161 |
 Cameroon | 113 |
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