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Two women resting in the shade, one seated inside a wide metal bowl

Ghana

Accra: Makola Market

June 2007

Makola Market is one of Accra’s principal commercial districts. Its dense network of stalls, shops, and surrounding streets offers produce, dried fish, live snails, textiles, tools, household goods, cosmetics, bicycles, baskets, and many other products.

The original purpose-built market opened in 1924 and became a major center of wholesale and retail trade, with women traders playing a central role in its development. On 18 August 1979, Ghana’s Armed Forces Revolutionary Council demolished the market during a campaign against traders accused of hoarding, profiteering, and contributing to inflation. Makola later re-emerged as a commercial district and remains an important center of trade in Accra.

Weathered three-wheeled cargo bicycle with a wooden bed parked on gravel
Brush in hand, an artisan paints spots onto a carved wooden giraffe
Craftsman wearing a gold Africa pendant, painting a giraffe carving
Smoked and dried fish heaped around a tin and plastic bowls at a stall
Trader sorting okra into a basket beside stacked tomatoes and baskets
Man with facial scarification holding a cloth to his chin in a doorway
Large land snail with a striped shell crawling over leaves, sold live
Hands holding up a smoked rodent carcass sold as bushmeat
Vendors carrying basins of eggs and bundles on their heads through the crowd
Woman balancing a bowl of yams past stalls hung with clothing
Trader in green hair curlers at her stall, two young people behind her
Passengers packed shoulder to shoulder inside a crowded minibus
Sleeping baby wrapped to a woman's back as she crosses a street
Dried fish stacked in a pyramid over newspaper wrapping at a stall
Pig trotters piled on a metal tray beside a hanging scale
Singed pig trotters balanced in a stack on a butcher's tray
Dried shrimp heaped over the rim of a metal measuring tin
Tower of scalded pig trotters stacked on a wooden block
Hand reaching over a pot of stew simmering in near darkness
Toddler riding in a cloth wrap on a woman's back among cooking pots
Young woman in a blue headscarf and striped top amid the market crowd
Handcart loaded with sacks and netted bags of yellow produce by a wall
Broom seller carrying bundled brooms on her head, a child on her back
Girl steadying a wide green enamel basin on her head beside a railing
Porter with a child on her back facing an oncoming minibus in the road
Loaded basin on her head, a woman walks a broad street past pedestrians
Covered market sheds hung with second-hand clothes above concrete stalls
Carved djembe drums standing in rows on bare ground for sale
Woman carrying a green basin on her head and a child on her arm outside a shop
Two women resting in the shade, one seated inside a wide metal bowl

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