Disability and Rehabilitation in Late Colonial Ghana

Abstract

This paper analyzes disability and economic rehabilitation in late colonial Ghana (the Gold Coast), focusing particularly on a program for African soldiers between 1943 and 1947. The project, which attempted to reintegrate the rehabilitees into the existing workforce, failed within a few years of its inception. I argue that its failure occurred for three reasons: urban economic hardship, the rehabilitees’ peasant backgrounds and the colonial doctrine of community development. Reinforcing this analysis is the fact that after independence, the Ghanaian government reversed the colonial conditions and achieved much better success.