Investment in Human Capital and the Ghanaian Sustainable Development in Darko’s Between Two Worlds

When developing his theory of human capital, Theodore William Schultz contends: “The quality of human effort can be greatly improved and its productivity enhanced…. The investment in human capital accounts for most of the impressive rise in the real earnings per worker” (1). The theory sustains that investing in human capital develops his or her productivity, economy and life. This vision is not different from the African postcolonial politics. Africa, conceived as a local space, requires its nations to invest in its human capital to get rid of the colonial poverty. This has always been the concern of the postcolonial Pan-African thinkers. Marcus Garvey’s “Africa for the Africans” is the nativist slogan that perfectly translates this Pan-African vision of investing in human capital for the sustainable development of the African countries. Using the theory of investing in human capital, this article argues that Amma Darko represents in Between Two Worlds this Pan-African leaders’ politics of investing in human capital for the local development of the African countries. Since with colonial heritage in Ghana the dying of the traditional economic system by Western monetary system gives room to the colonial poverty, Nkrumah invests in the human capital for the development of Ghana. Analysing Darko’s novel from the point of view of Theodore William Schultz’s economic concept of investment in human capital, this article concludes that Nkrumah invests in local and diasporic human capital for the sustainable development of the Ghanaian society.