The effective implementation of population policies is critical in addressing development challenges
particularly for developing countries. Ghana’s experience at population policy implementation spans a
period over four decades. There have been successes, failures and challenges as new issues which
hitherto were non-existent at the inception of the policy, emerge in the course of implementation. This
paper assesses Ghana’s efforts at implementing its national population policy and brings out deep
insights on lessons learnt and makes proposals for the way forward. The assessment shows that while
some successes have been achieved in the area of fertility transition, increasing life expectancy at birth,
etc., there are still critical challenges which are socio-cultural and political in character. Institutional
structures for coordinating the implementation are undermined by poor resource in-flow from the
state resulting in loss of trained human resources for effective implementation. The functional
integration of population variables into development planning at the district level is consequently
virtually non-existent. It is, therefore, just not enough to have a population policy as a document if the
state does not attach the highest level of importance to population dynamics as a development planning
priority in the country.