IMANI warns gov’t over regional inflation gaps
The country’s recent achievement of single-digit inflation, falling to 9.4 per cent in September 2025, has been hailed by government and monetary authorities as a major macroeconomic milestone.
Public policy think tank IMANI Africa, however warns that the headline figure tells only half the story, masking deep regional inequalities and structural weaknesses in the economy.
In its latest ‘Criticality Analysis on Inflation Trends,’ IMANI argues that the national celebration of lower inflation conceals troubling disparities across regions, with the northern and inland parts of the country still experiencing severe price pressures.
According to the analysis, while the overall inflation rate declined from over 23 per cent at the start of the year to single digits, the North East Region recorded inflation as high as 20.1 per cent, compared to just 1.2 per cent in Bono East.
This means households in North East are enduring a cost-of-living surge nearly 16 times higher than those in Bono East.
Earlier in the year, when national inflation dropped to 18.4 per cent, the Upper West Region still grappled with 38.1 per cent inflation, underscoring that the benefits of disinflation have not been evenly distributed across the country.
“These disparities reveal a deeper structural challenge: inflation in Ghana is increasingly regionalised, not uniform. The same national policies that have stabilised prices in Accra or Kumasi have had much weaker effects in the northern and inland regions, where food inflation, logistics costs and supply bottlenecks dominate local price dynamics,” IMANI noted.
IMANI attributes the uneven inflation trends to poor infrastructure, weak supply chains and high transport costs, which continue to isolate large segments of the population from the benefits of national stabilisation policies.
For households in Upper East, Upper West, Savanna and parts of Northern Ghana, the supposed macroeconomic victory feels distant. Prices of food items such as maize, rice and tomatoes remain elevated, while transport fares and energy costs fluctuate sharply, keeping living conditions precarious despite the national disinflation narrative.
Development economists and multilateral partners such as the World Bank and IMF have also cautioned that uneven inflation recovery threatens inclusive growth and social stability, particularly in regions already struggling with poverty and underemployment.
IMANI is therefore urging government policymakers to shift focus from headline figures to regional realities, stressing that inflation control should go beyond fiscal and monetary tightening.
The think tank recommends targeted infrastructure investments, regional logistics hubs and support for local food storage and processing as crucial measures to ensure equitable price stability nationwide.
“Government should not only celebrate the national inflation rate but also ensure that every region experiences the relief such policies are meant to bring,” IMANI added.
