Ghana’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has called on African countries to deepen economic integration, reject xenophobia and work together to create opportunities for the continent’s growing youth population.
Speaking at the 3i Africa Summit 2026 in Accra, the Minister said Africa could not achieve prosperity if African countries continued to treat each other with suspicion while the rest of the world was strengthening cooperation.
Mr Ablakwa, who represented President John Dramani Mahama at the summit, said the gathering of African central bank governors and financial leaders in Ghana showed that the vision of Africa’s founders for economic unity was beginning to take shape.
Mr Ablakwa said African central banks working together on digital finance, payment systems and financial technology was an important step toward economic emancipation on the continent.
He linked the summit to the vision of Ghana’s first President, Kwame Nkrumah, who in 1963 called for African unity, a common market and stronger cooperation among African states.
The Foreign Affairs Minister used part of his address to condemn xenophobia and attacks on Africans living in other African countries.
He said Africans could not speak about integration and free trade while fellow Africans were being abused or driven away from countries where they sought opportunities.
“We cannot build an integrated Africa if we do not increase love and compassion for each other,” he said.
Mr Ablakwa compared the treatment of African migrants to the support given to Ukrainians displaced by war in Europe.
He noted that millions of Ukrainians had been welcomed into European countries and quickly integrated into society, while Africans often faced hostility on their own continent.
He also drew attention to the humanitarian crisis in Sudan, where millions have been displaced, saying African leaders must show greater solidarity with fellow Africans facing hardship.
The Minister announced that Ghana had petitioned the African Union to place xenophobia and Afrophobia on the agenda of its next mid-year coordination meeting in Egypt.
He said the African Continental Free Trade Area offered the continent a major chance to grow trade and investment, but warned that Africa’s economies would remain weak if countries continued to operate in fragmented markets.
Mr Ablakwa highlighted Ghana’s role in supporting the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System, launched in Accra to make cross-border payments easier using local currencies.
Also speaking at the summit, the Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Mrs Matilda Asante-Asiedu, said Africa’s digital future must be built around systems that reflect the realities of African societies.
She said Ghana’s success in mobile money came from building solutions around basic mobile phones and existing agent networks rather than waiting for expensive technology.
Mrs Asante-Asiedu stressed that digital finance should not only focus on innovation but also on inclusion, saying systems must work for market women, small businesses and rural communities.
She said Africa needed stronger payment systems, trusted digital infrastructure and coordinated regulations to attract investment and support the growth of digital businesses across borders.
According to her, the next stage of Africa’s development would depend on infrastructure, cooperation and leadership that ensured technology worked for ordinary Africans and not only for a small privileged group.
BY AGNES OPOKU SARPONG
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