Inside Accra’s booming co-working culture
From converted bungalows in Labone to sleek glass towers in Cantonments, Accra’s co-working scene has exploded since 2023, reshaping how a new generation of Ghanaians think about work.
On a Wednesday morning in East Legon, the ground floor of Impact Hub Accra is already humming. A graphic designer is on a video call with a client in Rotterdam. A policy consultant is editing a governance report. Two college graduates are rehearsing a pitch deck. By ten o’clock the espresso machine has not stopped.nnAccra now has over sixty registered co-working spaces — up from eleven in 2020 — and the number keeps growing. Entrepreneurs, diaspora returnees, remote workers employed by European companies, and freelancers of every description have fuelled a demand that traditional office real estate could not meet.nn”Co-working was considered a niche thing for tech people a few years ago,” says Naa Larteley, who manages Hive+ in Labone. “Now I have lawyers, journalists, a doctor who consults part-time, a certified financial planner. The blend is extraordinary.”nnThe rise tracks several overlapping trends: Ghana’s growth as a regional business hub, the global spread of remote work since 2020, and a generation of Ghanaians who studied or worked abroad and returned expecting the infrastructure to match their ambitions.nnPrices range from GH¢80 per day for a hot-desk at a basic space to GH¢3,500 per month for a private suite at premium operators like Workiva and The Office in Cantonments. Most spaces now include high-speed fibre, unlimited printing, and meeting rooms bookable through apps.nnNot everything is smooth. Power outages remain a constant challenge — the spaces that invest in solar-plus-storage backup tend to fill fastest. “Our waiting list is twelve weeks,” says operator Ama Kyei of SolarDesk near Accra Mall. “It’s entirely because of the backup power.”
