Albert Ahenkan

Collective learning and COVID-19 mitigation in Ghana

By Paul Lawer Kenney

COVID-19 has created significant uncertainty and disruption among governments and people across the globe. Policy studies present various theoretical frameworks that allow scholars and practitioners to make sense of these developments in a structured and systematic fashion. In this paper, we combined the collective learning framework with documentary data and process tracing analysis to describe, first, the features of the COVID-19 collective learning setting in Ghana. Next, we explored the linkages among learning processes, learning products, and COVID-19 mitigation. We found that diverse policy actors operated at distinct levels of government and performed different functions in managing the pandemic. Furthermore, we confirmed all three phases of learning (acquisition, translation, and dissemination) in Ghana's context. Lastly, policies, such as public gathering management, mandatory mask-wearing, partial lockdown, and fiscal and tax reliefs enabled the government to mitigate the pandemic's impact on people. We conclude by highlighting the implications of these findings for policy learning scholarship. © 2022 Policy Studies Organization.