In Ghana, as in much of the world, a woman’s university degree, her salary, and her professional title are often taken as proof that she has made it; that she is empowered. But for many educated and wealthy women, those markers of advancement coexist with something far darker: violence, control, and a silence that their status only deepens. Drawing on Ghanaian data and international research, this analysis by Shallom Abla Lumor examines why resources alone do not guarantee agency, why economic abuse can erode independence, and why the women best positioned to leave are sometimes the ones least seen. It asks a harder question than whether women are advancing: whether they are actually free. Read the full article below.

Educated, Wealthy and Still Trapped: Why Women’s Advancement Falls Short of Empowerment

By Shallom Abla Lumor | Email: princesshallom@gmail.com

She has a university degree, perhaps two. She has a good job, earns her own money and pays a large share of the household bills. She may be a lecturer, a doctor, a banker or a lawyer. From the outside, we call her an empowered woman.

Yet she may be afraid to disagree with her husband. She may earn a good income and have little say over how it is spent. She may stay in a violent marriage because of her children, her church, her family name, fear for her safety, or what people will say.

Her degree and income tell us about her advancement. Whether she has power over her own life is a separate question.

Resources and the freedom to use them

Development scholar Naila Kabeer (1999) describes empowerment as the ability to make strategic life choices where that ability was previously denied. She separates resources, such as education and income, from agency, the ability to set goals and act on them. Resources make agency possible. They do not guarantee it.

So our questions must go further. Can she control the money she earns? Can she disagree with her partner without fear? Can she safely leave a dangerous relationship?

Education protects, up to a point

Ghana’s own data shows that education matters. Analysing the 2022 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey, Kwamena Sekyi Dickson, Castro Ayebeng and Joshua Okyere (2024) found that 36.4 percent of the married or cohabiting women in their sample had experienced some form of intimate partner violence. Women with secondary education or more had about 60 percent lower odds of having experienced it than women with no formal education.

That is a strong reason to keep investing in girls’ education. Lower odds still leave many educated women exposed. Even in the most educated group, about one in five women (19.2 percent) had experienced partner violence, compared with 41.7 percent of women with no formal education. The same study identified a partner’s dominance as an important predictor of violence, and a degree does little to change the man a woman comes home to.

Earning money and controlling it

Researchers including Judy Postmus and colleagues describe economic abuse as a distinct form of intimate partner abuse: controlling a woman’s access to money, monitoring her spending, running up debts in her name, or interfering with her work. A good salary offers limited protection when someone else decides how it is used.

Abuse can also wear away the independence a woman once had. Using police and employment records for the whole of Finland, economists Abi Adams-Prassl, Kristiina Huttunen, Emily Nix and Ning Zhang (2024) found that women whose partners were later reported for physical violence saw their earnings and employment fall sharply as soon as they moved in with these men, compared with similar women. The authors read this as economic suppression: abusive men weakening a woman’s ability to support herself and, later, to leave.

When her success collides with his beliefs

In a US study using a national sample of 4,296 people surveyed in the late 1980s, Maxine Atkinson, Theodore Greenstein and Molly Monahan Lang (2005) found that a wife’s share of household income was associated with a higher likelihood of abuse only among husbands with traditional gender beliefs. In Australia, Yinjunjie Zhang and Robert Breunig (2023) found that women who out earned their partners reported partner violence at a rate about 33 percent above the average, and emotional abuse about 20 percent above it. The authors concluded that the pattern points to norms about male breadwinning.

These studies show associations, from countries far from Ghana, so we should not borrow their numbers. Their question still applies here. If a man has been taught that a husband must always be the head and the main provider, what happens when his wife earns more? The risk lies in a belief system that reads her success as a threat to his authority.

Status can become its own prison

We assume a wealthy, educated woman would find it easier to speak up. The American psychotherapist Susan Weitzman suggests it can be harder. Drawing on interviews with fourteen affluent women, her book Not to People Like Us (2000) describes what she calls “upscale violence,” and argues that police, courts and counsellors often overlook such women because many people believe abuse happens only to other kinds of women.

When she does speak, she hears: “You are a lawyer, how can you allow this?” “You have your own money, why don’t you leave?” Such questions turn his behaviour into a verdict on her intelligence.

Children, church and the cost of leaving

In her master’s research at VID Specialized University (2020), Elorm Ama Stiles-Ocran interviewed ten Anlo Ewe survivors of domestic violence. They named poverty, the effects of divorce on their children, the shame and stigma of violence and divorce, fear of further violence, and church teaching on marriage as reasons they felt there was no way out. In a 2023 article in the African Journal of Gender and Religion, she draws on the stories of thirteen abused Christian women in a mainline church in southern Ghana to examine how theology shapes their agency.

Faith gives many women strength. In these women’s accounts, it could also hold them in place, when submission was taught as silence or when keeping the marriage together counted for more than the safety of the woman inside it.

Church leaders disagree about the church’s part in this. On 12 April 2022, the then Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church Ghana, Most Rev Dr Paul Kwabena Boafo, said it was unwise to stay in an abusive marriage in the name of religion or society, and spoke about pastors who had persuaded abused members to stay. The next day, Rev Prof Johnson Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, now Presiding Bishop of the same church, said no Christian church encourages members to remain in abusive marriages and that the church was not to blame, while urging churches to protect victims and discipline abusers. Survivors deserve to know which of these they will meet in their own congregation.

Leaving also carries danger. A US study led by Jacquelyn Campbell (2003) compared 220 women killed by intimate partners with 343 women living with abuse, and found that separating from a controlling partner after living together was associated with a higher risk of being killed. Ghana’s context differs, yet a woman who has not left may understand the risk better than those judging her.

What we still don’t know

Ghana has the Domestic Violence Act, 2007 (Act 732) and the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service. Yet we have very little Ghanaian research on abuse among educated and wealthy women, and most of what we know about “upscale” abuse comes from abroad. The more firmly we picture the abused woman as poor and uneducated, the less likely we are to see her when she is a doctor or a director.

What each of us can do

Families can believe a daughter who reports abuse and stop sending her back to manage the marriage. Pastors can treat abuse as a safety matter first and refer survivors to DOVVSU and trained counsellors. Employers can offer confidential support, knowing senior staff may be living with violence at home. Men can challenge the idea that a wife’s income diminishes her husband. Friends can ask, “What do you need to be safe?”

A woman’s degree, income and title are achievements worth celebrating. Empowerment asks whether she can use them to shape her own life, freely and safely, and whether her home, church and community let her.

Sources

• Kabeer, N. (1999). Resources, agency, achievements: Reflections on the measurement of women’s empowerment. Development and Change, 30(3).
• Dickson, K. S., Ayebeng, C. and Okyere, J. (2024). Unveiling Shadows: Investigating women’s experience of intimate partner violence in Ghana through the lens of the 2022 Demographic and Health Survey. PLOS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0309564
• Postmus, J. L., Plummer, S. B. and Stylianou, A. M. (2016). Measuring economic abuse in the lives of survivors. Violence Against Women, 22(6).
• Adams-Prassl, A., Huttunen, K., Nix, E. and Zhang, N. (2024). The dynamics of abusive relationships. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 139(4). https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjae022
• Atkinson, M. P., Greenstein, T. N. and Lang, M. M. (2005). For women, breadwinning can be dangerous: Gendered resource theory and wife abuse. Journal of Marriage and Family, 67(5).
• Zhang, Y. and Breunig, R. (2023). Female breadwinning and domestic abuse: Evidence from Australia. Journal of Population Economics, 36(4). https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00148-023-00975-9
• Weitzman, S. (2000). Not to People Like Us: Hidden Abuse in Upscale Marriages. Basic Books.
• Stiles-Ocran, E. A. (2020). No way out? The dilemma of survivors of domestic violence and the church’s response in Ghana. MA dissertation, VID Specialized University. https://hdl.handle.net/11250/2825498
• Stiles-Ocran, E. A. (2023). Theology and women’s agency in the context of intimate partner violence in Ghana. African Journal of Gender and Religion, 29(1), 74 to 101. https://hdl.handle.net/11250/3082947
• Stiles-Ocran, E. A. [Title and year to confirm]. Religion and Development, 4(2 to 3), from p. 213. https://brill.com/view/journals/rnd/4/2-3/article-p213_5.xml
• Campbell, J. C. et al. (2003). Risk factors for femicide in abusive relationships: Results from a multisite case control study. American Journal of Public Health, 93(7). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12835191/
• Ghana News Agency (12 April 2022). Don’t die in abusive marriage, Bishop Boafo. https://gna.org.gh/2022/04/dont-die-in-abusive-marriagebishop-boafo/
• Ghana News Agency (13 April 2022). No church supports abusive marriage, Clergyman. https://gna.org.gh/2022/04/no-church-supports-abusive-marriageclergyman/

Ghana is preparing to formally apply to join BRICS, opening a new chapter in the country’s effort to diversify its international partnerships and gain greater room to manoeuvre in an increasingly fragmented global economy.

Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa announced on October 6 that President John Dramani Mahama’s Cabinet had approved Ghana’s decision to submit a formal application to the bloc.

“Another major highlight which I am disclosing to the Ghanaian people for the first time is that the Cabinet of President John Dramani Mahama has decided that Ghana should put in a formal application to join BRICS,” Ablakwa said, according to the Ghana News Agency.

The announcement places Ghana inside a much larger geopolitical conversation.

BRICS has evolved considerably from the original grouping of Brazil, Russia, India and China. South Africa joined in 2011, while Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were added in the latest major expansion. Indonesia subsequently became a full member.

The group also created a partner-country category, with Nigeria, Uganda and other countries joining that framework. Partner status gives countries opportunities to participate in selected BRICS meetings and discussions, although it does not provide the same participation as full membership.

Ghana is now seeking something more ambitious: membership.

But joining BRICS would not, by itself, transform Ghana’s economy.

The real question is what Ghana intends to negotiate once it gets a seat at the table.

Beyond the BRICS Label

BRICS is not a conventional economic union or free-trade bloc. It has no constitutive treaty, permanent secretariat or common budget, and its members coordinate across areas including politics and security, economics and finance, and people-to-people cooperation. Major decisions are made by consensus.

That distinction matters.

Membership would give Ghana additional diplomatic access and a platform for cooperation with some of the world’s major emerging economies. It would not automatically deliver factories, infrastructure projects, investment, technology transfers or new export markets.

Those outcomes would have to be negotiated.

And that is where Ghana’s BRICS strategy becomes much more important than the application itself.

What Should Ghana Negotiate For?

If Accra is serious about using BRICS as an economic-development instrument, its negotiating agenda could extend well beyond diplomatic visibility.

1. Better market access for Ghanaian exports

Ghana should seek practical pathways into BRICS markets for products capable of generating greater value domestically.

That means going beyond the traditional export of raw commodities.

Cocoa is the obvious example. Rather than viewing BRICS primarily as another destination for Ghanaian cocoa beans, Accra could pursue partnerships that expand processing, chocolate manufacturing, packaging and related industries inside Ghana.

The same logic applies to minerals, agricultural products, pharmaceuticals, processed foods and manufactured goods.

The objective should be simple: more Ghanaian value created before products leave Ghana.

2. Make the AfCFTA connection a strategic advantage

This may be one of Ghana’s most important cards.

The Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area is headquartered in Accra, giving Ghana an unusual position within Africa’s emerging single-market architecture.

The AfCFTA’s central challenge is moving from negotiated rules to implementation and increasing intra-African trade. Its Secretary-General, Wamkele Mene, said in July 2026 that implementation remains the priority and that intra-African trade exceeded $220 billion in 2024.

Ghana should therefore resist treating BRICS membership simply as a bilateral relationship between Accra and the BRICS capitals.

It can position itself as a gateway between BRICS economies and the African Continental Free Trade Area.

That creates a potentially powerful proposition:

Invest in Ghana, manufacture in Ghana, and use the AfCFTA market as part of the commercial opportunity.

The value would not be Ghana’s population alone. It would be Ghana’s location within a continent-wide market framework.

3. Turn investment interest into industrial capacity

Ghana does not simply need foreign capital.

It needs capital tied to productive capacity.

That means negotiating for investments in manufacturing, agro-processing, pharmaceuticals, renewable energy, logistics, digital infrastructure and other sectors capable of creating jobs and increasing exports.

Accra should be particularly interested in agreements that include local-content requirements, skills development, technology transfer and Ghanaian participation in supply chains.

The question should not simply be:

How much money will you invest?

It should be:

What will Ghana be able to produce five or 10 years after you invest?

4. Pursue development financing strategically

BRICS also has an important financial dimension.

The New Development Bank, created by the BRICS countries, is designed to mobilize resources for infrastructure and sustainable-development projects.

For Ghana, the potential attraction is not simply another source of borrowing.

The strategic question is whether alternative financing relationships can give Accra more options when funding infrastructure, energy, transport, water, technology and industrial projects.

But additional financing is not automatically beneficial.

Ghana would still need to assess the cost of borrowing, repayment risks, project viability, procurement arrangements and the effect on public debt.

BRICS should therefore expand Ghana’s financing choices—not replace financial discipline.

5. Build technology partnerships, not just technology imports

India and China, among others, offer Ghana potential areas for cooperation in digital technology, manufacturing, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, agriculture and technical education.

But Ghana’s objective should be to develop domestic capabilities rather than become permanently dependent on imported technology.

That means negotiating for training, research partnerships, scholarships, technology transfer, local engineering capacity and participation by Ghanaian companies.

A successful BRICS relationship should leave Ghana with more expertise than it had before the relationship began.

6. Agriculture and food security should be central

Food security is increasingly tied to geopolitics.

Ghana has an opportunity to seek partnerships in agricultural technology, irrigation, mechanization, fertilizer production, food processing, storage and logistics.

The goal should be to move from importing finished or semi-processed food products toward strengthening domestic production and processing.

This would also fit into the broader AfCFTA objective of developing regional value chains.

The Western Question

Perhaps the most delicate part of Ghana’s BRICS strategy will be managing its existing relationships with Western partners.

Ghana does not have to choose between BRICS and the West.

That is one of the most important points in understanding what BRICS membership could mean for Accra.

Ghana has long maintained extensive economic, diplomatic and development relationships with countries and institutions outside BRICS. A strategy of expanding ties with Brazil, Russia, India, China and other emerging economies does not inherently require Ghana to abandon relationships with the United States, European Union, United Kingdom or international financial institutions.

In fact, Ghana could seek to use the competition and diversification of partnerships to increase its negotiating options.

The objective would be strategic diversification, not geopolitical substitution.

But there are also complications.

BRICS includes countries with sharply different political systems, strategic interests and relationships with Western powers. The group also includes Russia, while some BRICS members maintain close relationships with the United States and Europe.

Ghana would therefore need to maintain a foreign policy capable of working across competing geopolitical blocs.

That requires diplomatic discipline.

Accra would need to make clear that economic cooperation with BRICS does not automatically translate into alignment with every member’s foreign-policy position.

Ghana’s Potential Leverage

Ghana may have more to offer BRICS than simply another membership application.

Its democratic credentials, diplomatic relationships across different regions, English-speaking business environment and position in West Africa could give it strategic relevance.

Most importantly, Ghana hosts the AfCFTA Secretariat.

That creates the possibility of positioning Ghana as a meeting point between BRICS economic interests and Africa’s continental market.

The opportunity could be especially significant if Ghana can persuade investors from BRICS economies to use the country not merely as an export destination but as a production and distribution base for the wider African market.

That would make Ghana’s BRICS strategy part of its industrialization strategy.

But Accra Must Avoid the Symbolism Trap

There is a danger in treating BRICS membership itself as an economic achievement.

Membership does not automatically create jobs.

It does not automatically attract factories.

It does not automatically increase exports.

It does not automatically reduce Ghana’s financing costs.

And it does not automatically produce technology transfers.

The BRICS framework itself emphasizes cooperation among major Global South economies and greater participation in global governance, while its expanded membership creates opportunities for broader economic and diplomatic partnerships.

But Ghana’s gains will ultimately depend on what it brings to the negotiating table.

The country will need clear national priorities, strong commercial diplomacy and institutions capable of following agreements from announcement to implementation.

That means ministries, investment agencies, trade negotiators and Ghanaian businesses must be working from the same strategy.

A headline announcing a major investment is not the same thing as a functioning factory.

A memorandum of understanding is not the same thing as a completed project.

A diplomatic meeting is not the same thing as market access.

And a BRICS membership card is not an economic-development plan.

The Bigger Opportunity

Ghana’s BRICS application comes at a moment when the international economic system is becoming more multipolar.

The BRICS group itself describes its expansion as strengthening the ability of Global South countries to engage on issues including global governance reform and sustainable development.

That changing environment could give middle-sized countries such as Ghana greater space to pursue diversified partnerships.

But diplomatic diversification only becomes economically meaningful when it produces tangible outcomes.

For Ghana, those outcomes could include new export markets, industrial investment, infrastructure financing, technology partnerships, stronger agricultural value chains and greater integration between Ghanaian businesses and global supply chains.

The AfCFTA could make the proposition even more powerful.

Instead of presenting Ghana simply as a small West African economy seeking investment, Accra can present itself as a country sitting at the intersection of BRICS capital, African markets and continental trade integration.

That is a much stronger negotiating position.

So, What Will Ghana Negotiate For?

Ghana is asking for a seat at the BRICS table.

The harder question begins after the invitation—or after the application process moves forward.

Will Ghana negotiate for factories or simply investment announcements?

Will it negotiate for technology transfer or simply technology imports?

Will it negotiate for value-added exports rather than continued dependence on raw commodities?

Will it negotiate financing that supports productive infrastructure without creating unsustainable debt?

Will it use its position as the home of the AfCFTA Secretariat to connect BRICS investors to the wider African market?

And can it deepen relationships with emerging powers while maintaining constructive relationships with Western partners?

Those questions matter more than the symbolism of joining another international grouping.

If Ghana gets the strategy right, BRICS could become another instrument in a broader foreign-policy and economic-development agenda.

If it does not, membership could amount largely to another diplomatic badge.

A recent report by Anthropic, the AI company behind the Claude models, has exposed two distinct and troubling operations on the African continent: one that used AI to generate pro-Russia, anti-France narratives for a radio station in the Central African Republic, and another that used the same technology as an engineering workforce to help build a national surveillance platform in Mali capable of monitoring 25 million SIM cards. Together, these cases reveal a convergence of influence, cyber capability and surveillance inside the same technological ecosystem, and raise urgent questions about who is really speaking to African audiences, and who is watching them.

In this analysis, Joseph McCarthy, an analyst specializing in Sahel governance and security, examines what these developments mean for Ghana and West Africa, particularly as the region approaches a pivotal election year and as ECOWAS grapples with evolving threats that transcend borders.

Read the full analysis below.

Making Foreign Influence Look Local: How AI Is Reshaping Russia’s Information Operations in Africa

By Joseph McCarthy   ·   Analyst, Sahel governance & security

25M SIM CARDS TARGETED IN MALI

3 NATIONAL MOBILE OPERATORS COVERED

Cat. 4 BREAKOUT SCALE RATING, CAR CASE

Artificial intelligence is no longer simply a tool for making human work faster. It is becoming an instrument of power, capable of generating propaganda, conducting cyber operations, building surveillance systems and shaping public opinion at a scale that was previously difficult to achieve. Work that once required teams of writers, translators, researchers and media operators can increasingly be accelerated, coordinated and automated. The result is a new kind of geopolitical competition in which influence itself can be industrialised.

A recent threat intelligence report by Anthropic, the AI company behind the Claude models, offers a glimpse of what this looks like in practice. The company disclosed that it had disrupted an operation linked to Politology, the Africa Corps/Wagner influence branch that Anthropic assesses came under the control of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service in late 2023.

A Russian-speaking operator based in Bangui used Claude to produce daily content for Radio Lengo Songo, a Central African Republic radio station, generating pro-government, pro-Russia and anti-France narratives that were then amplified through Russian state outlets including RT, Sputnik Afrique and TASS, as well as the Russian House in Bangui. The operator reportedly instructed the model to make the material “look like ordinary journalism” rather than AI-generated content, and separately used it to draft forged communications attributed to the Central African Gendarmerie and Ministry of Defence, and to track opposition figures. Notably, Anthropic says Claude refused a request to name real individuals as militants, a detail that speaks to the limits built into the system rather than its capture by it.

“The objective is no longer only to tell people what to believe; it is to obscure who is asking them to believe it.”

The significance of this case goes beyond the volume of material AI can produce. It lies in the possibility of making foreign influence appear local. Traditional propaganda depended on people to write, translate, adapt and distribute messages, a slow and labour-intensive process. AI increasingly performs many of these functions at once. Anthropic describes the technology as a “force multiplier”: operations that once required specialised teams can now be run faster, at greater scale and at lower cost. This changes the economics of influence, but the more consequential shift is in its visibility. A narrative created or coordinated by a foreign actor can now pass through a local radio station, circulate on social media, and reach audiences as though it were an independent domestic view.

Russia has long understood that geopolitical power extends beyond military reach into the information space. The Central African Republic case does not establish that Russia’s entire African messaging strategy is now automated. What it demonstrates is narrower but still significant: AI can be folded into an existing network of media outlets, personnel and political relationships to make foreign messaging faster to produce, easier to localise and harder to trace to its source.

FROM PERSUASION TO SURVEILLANCE

Anthropic’s report also documents a second, quite different case, one that shows AI’s reach extending from persuasion into surveillance. The company says it identified an actor, likely an independent consultant based in Bamako, working with Mali’s state intelligence service, the Agence Nationale de la Sécurité d’État, who used Claude as the primary engineering workforce behind a national surveillance platform named Lakana 360. The system was designed to monitor roughly 25 million SIM cards across Mali’s three mobile network operators, collecting call records, text messages and voice traffic, matching identities across cards, and generating dossiers on individual phone numbers. According to Anthropic, the consultant removed a warrant check from the dossier function, at an operator’s request, circumventing the legal safeguard that would otherwise have required judicial authorisation before such records were disclosed.

The distinction that matters here is what Claude actually did. It was not used to analyse finished surveillance output; it was used to help design and build the software that made the surveillance possible. Anthropic’s ban on the account halted further design assistance but did not disable the system already deployed, which continued to run on other, locally hosted models. The case does not show that the Malian government itself directed the misuse. It shows something arguably more important: that a single individual, working with a state security service, could use a commercial AI model as an engineering workforce to help build surveillance infrastructure at national scale.

Together, these cases point to a challenge broader than disinformation. The same systems that can generate a convincing local narrative can also help build the tools to monitor the populations exposed to it. For African states, the question is no longer only whether a piece of content is true or false, but who produced it, who financed it, who is amplifying it, and whether the apparent local voice behind it is local at all.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR GHANA AND WEST AFRICA

Ghana’s own experience during its 2024 elections offers an early domestic parallel, if not a directly connected one. The Media Foundation for West Africa documented fabricated audio recordings of the two main presidential candidates, while Freedom House reported AI-generated deepfake audio and video alongside coordinated bot activity spreading misleading narratives. What Ghana encountered as isolated synthetic-media incidents could, as the tools mature, become part of far more systematic operations of the kind Anthropic has now documented elsewhere on the continent.

Information does not respect West Africa’s borders, and a narrative built in one country can be adapted and amplified in another within minutes. ECOWAS has historically organised its security cooperation around terrorism, organised crime and border control. The evidence now emerging suggests that information integrity and digital authentication need to sit alongside those priorities, with member states building the capacity to identify coordinated foreign influence, verify digital content and share intelligence on emerging technological threats.

The lesson for West Africa is not that another foreign power has acquired a new propaganda tool. It is that influence, cyber capability and surveillance are converging inside the same technological ecosystem. The states that prepare for that reality will be defending something larger than their information space. They will be defending the institutions and, ultimately, the sovereignty that rests on citizens’ ability to know who is speaking to them, and why.

Joseph McCarthy is an analyst and researcher specialising in governance, security and political transitions in the Sahel. He writes on geopolitics, development and African diplomacy. joecarthy30@gmail.com