Despite years of foreign donor assistance aimed at improving conditions for Ghana’s informal food sector, a growing body of evidence suggests the bulk of support has failed to reach the most vulnerable workers — the low-paid, precariously employed women who form the backbone of the country’s famed “chop bar” economy, Dailypost.com.gh investigations have revealed.
Chop bars, informal street food vendors that provide affordable meals to millions across urban Ghana, are deeply woven into the cultural and economic fabric of the nation. But behind the sizzling pots and busy queues lies a workforce plagued by harsh working conditions, limited legal protection, and low wages.
A 2016 survey by the Food and Agriculture Organisation estimated that Accra alone had more than 3,300 chop bars employing nearly 4,300 workers — a figure that is likely to have risen significantly with urban growth, Dailypost.com.gh has discovered.
Yet, despite their role in feeding the city, chop bar workers — particularly informal wage earners — continue to be left out of most aid strategies.
Recent research examining donor-supported interventions — particularly one spearheaded by Danish trade unions and the Danish Federation of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises — has highlighted a critical blind spot in foreign support strategies. The programme, implemented through Ghana’s Trades Union Congress, focused heavily on entrepreneurship and access to micro-credit for small-scale food vendors.
While these efforts helped boost confidence and business skills for some self-employed operators, experts argue they largely ignored the sector’s internal class divisions and failed to uplift the wage labourers who endure the worst conditions.
“These women work long hours, often without contracts, social protections, or the right to organise,” said one researcher involved in the study. “They are the most vulnerable group in this economy, and yet no donor intervention seems designed for them.”
Indeed, foreign aid has largely targeted individuals who own modest assets, such as cooking pots or structures — and view themselves as entrepreneurs. These recipients benefit from financial literacy training and small loans. But the majority of chop bar workers are migrants with little education, employed without security, and exposed to exploitation.
Colonel policies have focused on what economists term the “supply side” — assuming that boosting individual skills or credit access would naturally lead to more jobs or better incomes. But this approach has come under increasing criticism for ignoring deeper structural problems.
“Confidence training does not fix land insecurity or urban planning failures. Micro-credit cannot substitute for labour protections or wage standards,” said one Accra-based development analyst. “The real problem is not just a lack of skills — it’s the lack of decent work opportunities and legal recognition.”
Ghana’s Statistical Service estimates that between 70% and 80% of the country’s labour force operates in the informal sector. Yet most donor strategies are still rooted in outdated assumptions about the nature of informal work — seeing it purely as entrepreneurial, rather than a complex mix of employer-employee dynamics.
The study calls for a shift in donor thinking: away from small-scale entrepreneurial fantasies and toward systemic reforms that would offer real protection to workers, enforceable labour standards, and targeted investment in better urban planning.
“If foreign donors truly want to make an impact, they must stop overlooking wage workers in favour of feel-good stories about ‘empowered entrepreneurs’,” one of the report’s authors said. “What the chop bar sector needs isn’t more micro-solutions — it’s structural change.”
