What comes to mind when people hear about Ghana? The popular saying is that Ghanaians are warm and friendly. These are very good attributes in enhancing the image of a country. But the question IS, Are these attributes enough to make Ghana one of the top brands in the world? As a country, we have to realise that we are competing with about 193 other countries around the world for a share of the global cake. At any given time, there is a limited amount of wealth circulating around the world and every country would want to have a greater share of this wealth to improve the standards of living of its people. The competitive element here is very high and it will take more than "friendly dimensions" to become competitive on the global market and build a sustainable brand. The starting point of developing the Ghana brand should start from its people, that is, Ghanaians themselves. Ghanaians must show the commitment and zeal to promote and make this country a better place to live in. We must show pride in our nationality, just like the Americans, the British and the Chinese. We have two of the most assiduous Ghanaian exports, Michael Essien and Mr Kofi Annan. In the pursuit of their personal ambitions, they made remarkable successes in their careers, achievements that took international dimension. Michael Essien is described in British football circles as the 'Ghanaian' midfielder, which synchronises with his great exploits in football. Since his recent strides in Chelsea, the international media like the BBC have shown great interest in Ghana football. This has inevitably added value to the Ghana brand. Mr Kofi Annan can be described as one of the best personalities to have held the office of UN Secretary-General, the highest office in the world. He experienced more conflicts in office than any other UN Secretary-General. The vision and changes he brought to the United Nations and the way he handled conflicts earned him international reputation which definitely added value to the Ghana brand. This was a big business opportunity for Ghana to utilise the services of this great man to undertake trade missions across the world to generate foreign investments for Ghana, after his tenure of office as UN Secretary-General. The second point is to maintain economic and political stability, ensuring positive economic indicators and proper implementation of democratic structures. These are the fundamental ingredients a country requires to build a national brand. Over the past four years, Ghana has enjoyed economic and political stability. Inflation has reduced from about 26 per cent in 2003 to 10.1 per cent in October 2007. The cedi has stabilised against major currencies. Since 2005, GDP growth rate has averaged six per cent. According to the latest Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS) conducted by the Statistical Service in 2005/06, the incidence of poverty reduced from approximately 52 per cent in the early 1990s to 39.5 per cent in 1998/99 and 28.5 per cent in 2005/06. These are good economic indicators but we need to evaluate this performance first against developing countries in our category and second, developed countries to ascertain our real performance in the global environment. As a country we also need to measure our global market share in terms of our natural resources and gross domestic product (GDP) to determine our real position against the remaining 193 countries of the world. These could be used as benchmarks to evaluate our strengths and weaknesses, analyse our business potential and determine what resources are required to push our market share up and improve our position in global trade. Sound economic policies do not necessarily solve the problems of a country. They only provide the enabling environment for businesses to prosper. The government must, therefore, develop a business plan to be used in line with its economic plan or budgetary statement. The business plan or strategic marketing plan must seek to develop programmes that will enhance the image of the country, build strong industries from our natural resources (for example, a viable jewellery industry from gold), encourage consumption of local products, and make exports more competitive. The business plan can be six-fold-different business strategies for Ghana itself, for the rest of Africa, Europe, Asia, USA, Canada, and indeed for the rest of the world. If we target the whole world at a go, we would run into problems so we need to break down our business strategies into continental priorities. We would have to use our embassies to aggressively seek investment. All embassies must be given targets on how much investment they should generate for any given year to encourage them to generate more investments. The third point is that we should start developing our own technologies as exemplified by Kristo Asafo. Students of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology pursuing science programmes should develop innovative technological products as part of their final-year assessment. It is ironical to see graduates in physics and chemistry ending up as marketing managers. These graduates should be engaged in scientific research leading to technological breakthroughs. Science graduates should develop technologies for marketing graduates to market. There are three things that are driving the major countries like USA, Britain, Germany and China: technology, business and economy. Ghana cannot build a formidable brand without technology. We have to start developing our own technology and stop depending on foreign technology, which is very expensive. We are not getting the maximum returns from our natural resources like gold because we do not have the technology to mine the gold. God gave us these natural resources to sustain the lives of the people. Too much reliance on agriculture as a major source of income might slow the progress of the country. Agriculture should be used to satisfy hunger, feed local industries and the rest for export. If Ghana is able to build local industries which can absorb 70-90 per cent of our agricultural produce, we can generate more employment, increase local consumption and aggregate demand and have fewer agricultural produce to export and as a result would not panic when the prices of agricultural produce fall on the world market. . Ghana should diversify into industrialisation where margins on technology-driven products are higher. No country has monopoly over technology which some schools of thought simply refer to as a pool of knowledge. God has made technology available for us to discover and utilise. Ghana can form a partners with China or other Asian countries so that we can devise how best to harness our technological innovations and marketing with their labour and other requisite resources. The fourth point in developing a sustainable brand for Ghana is to give our culture national and international dimension. It is culture that makes the people of a country unique and the country brand distinct. We must practise and celebrate our culture with passion. China, India and Japan have become very powerful because they practise and "sell" their culture. There is nothing wrong in learning other people's culture but one's culture must take priority over other cultures. For most occasions Ghanaian men adorn themselves in suit because of the perception that it is the best and gorgeous way of dressing. The countries of origin of suit have succeeded in selling their culture to us. Have we also succeeded in selling our national cultural pride to them? How many foreigners do we see wearing Kente or other Ghanaian traditional wear? We are building the brand and selling the culture of other people while negating our own cultural values. Belittling our culture can dilute the Ghana brand tremendously. Our pride as a people should be in our culture and we must hold it with dignity. "Selling" one's culture can generate substantial revenue for the country. The last and one of the most critical points in developing a country brand is how to communicate our brand values to other countries. Ghana can take advantage of the international media like the BBC, CNN and TV and radio stations in other countries to advertise and promote Ghana. There are countries which do not know nor have requisite information about Ghana. We should identify these countries, put them into categories and find the appropriate communication tools to reach them. China and Japan periodically run documentary programmes on our local TV stations sometimes focusing on their hospitality industry to attract current and potential Ghanaian visitors and inhabitants to their countries. This is one of the strategic moves by China and Japan to get their countries closer and market them to Ghana. Countries like America and the United Kingdom have developed emotional ties with other countries because of the way they have used their music, movies and politics to market their countries. We must use our embassies abroad to undertake regular trade missions, exhibitions and image enhancement programmes. Source: Alfred Koomson/Daily Graphic