The Ghana Music Documentation Project is to develop a comprehensive database on Ghanaian music culture that brings together the various data and resource materials of public and private sector stakeholders for policy makers, academics, administrators, artists and artistes, embassies, foreign visitors and all other interested persons. The Ghana Music Documentation Project would serve as a tool that is (a) accessible to all stakeholders, that ( b) enables stakeholders to use it in different ways that best serve their respective interests and that is c) flexible enough to account for the continuous change of the cultural economy.

The overall significance of the Ghana Music Documentation Project will be in the development of a sustainable tool and database that will benefit researchers as much as policy makers, practitioners, communities, and the public at large. As such, it will also be a major contribution to the Digital Humanities more generally, which have, so far, been centered within North America and Western Europe. Our commitment to cultural and musical sustainability is grounded in the firm believe that it is only within a dynamic and diverse cultural landscape at the grass-roots level that a vibrant market-oriented cultural economy can also grow. At the policy level, the project addresses five of the six implementation areas listed in Ghana’s Cultural Policy. Specifically, these are “preservation and conservation of culture,” “development and promotion of culture,” “presentation of culture,” “establishment of appropriate administrative structures,” and finally “establishment of linkages with various sectors of national development” (NCC, 2004, 15-16).