Ghana at 70, told through the institutions that built it.
A landmark documentary series on seven decades of Ghanaian enterprise, invention and ambition — and the organisations that carried the country from independence to now.
Ghana’s story is usually told through its politics. It was built by something else.
By banks that financed the first Ghanaian-owned factories. By schools that educated four generations. By hospitals, engineering firms, insurers, and family businesses that opened their doors in the 1950s and 60s and are still open today, having outlasted every forecast made about them.
The Builders is the first sustained attempt to record that achievement on film, in audio, in print, and in the words of the people who made it happen.
Five formats. One record.
Each one carries what the others cannot.
The Film
A documentary series profiling the organisations that shaped modern Ghana, filmed on location and in the archives.
The Podcast
Long-form conversations with founders, successors and the people who built these institutions from the inside.
The Journal
The written strand of the series. Original essays, archival photography and research, published throughout the release period.
The Book
A commemorative volume: the definitive printed record of the series, made to sit in boardrooms and libraries for decades.
The Gala
A national evening in Accra where the organisations honoured in the series are brought together in one room. For many, for the first time.
Three acts, one anniversary.
The series is released in three movements across the first ten weeks of 2027, building to Independence Day.
Foundations
The institutions born with the nation, and the ambition of those first years.
Endurance
How Ghanaian organisations adapted, innovated and kept going — and what the country learned from them.
Inheritance
Who is building now, what they inherited, and what comes next. Climaxing on 6 March.
Seven pillars. One country.
Nations are not built in one direction at once. Ghana was built along seven lines — money, connection, industry, movement, health, learning and land. Explore the institutions of each.
Finance
The institutions that funded everything else.
ExploreConnection
Telecommunications, media and the post.
ExploreIndustry
Manufacturing, engineering and construction.
ExplorePower and Movement
Energy, water, transport and ports.
ExploreHealth
The institutions that kept the country standing.
ExploreLearning
Schools, universities and the training of a nation.
ExploreLand and Enterprise
Agriculture, agribusiness, trade and commerce.
Explore“The people who opened the doors in 1957 are in their nineties. This is the last decade in which this series can be made properly.”
Ghana turns 70 on 6 March 2027. It is the last major anniversary at which living memory of independence will still be available to us on camera.
Records are still recoverable. Founders are still able to tell it themselves. The people who ran these institutions through their defining years are still here to be asked.
This is a record assembled once, at the moment it can be assembled best.
Some of these stories are yours.
We are working with a defined group of Ghanaian organisations whose histories run through the national story. If your institution helped build this country, there is a place for it in this record.
Built by many. Belonging to all.
There are organisations we have not thought of. Tell us about one.
From the production.
Announcements, archive finds and release news as the series is built.
The first announcements will be published here.
Visit the newsroom
Follow the build.
Production notes, archive finds and release dates. Roughly monthly. Nothing else.
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