Africa Prosperity Dialogues: Create single market to provide jobs for youth — Vice-President

The Vice-President, Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, has underscored the need to break down barriers and create a single market to unlock opportunities and create jobs for the youth of Africa.

By doing so, she said, “we can also let millions out of poverty”.

Prof. Opoku-Agyemang, who was addressing the opening of a three-day Africa Prosperity Dialogues (APD) 2025 in Accra yesterday, said the integration of the continent was not just a theoretical concept but a lifeline to the collective future of the continent.

Background

The conference, which is being organised by the Africa Prosperity Network (APN) in collaboration with the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat, is on the theme: “Delivering Africa’s single market through infrastructure; Invest, connect, integrate”.

It is being attended by over 3,000 delegates from 46 countries, including heads of state, institutional heads, industry leaders, chief executives, entrepreneurs, ministers, policymakers, thought leaders and development partners across the continent and other parts of the world.

Describing such dialogues as unique, Prof. Opoku-Agyemang said it had rightly brought together voices from diverse sectors and ensured that the global market of Africa was inclusive and representative.

For example, she said, women had long been at the forefront of trade on the continent and dominated cross-border businesses, although “we continue to face significant barriers, from cumbersome regulations to inadequate infrastructure”. 

Call to action

The Vice-President said the theme for the dialogues was a call to action for all to accelerate the journey of Africa towards integration and shared prosperity.

Prof. Opoku-Agyemang said Ghana had since independence remained steadfast in its commitment to the integration and unity of the African continent, and continued to champion the cause by actively supporting initiatives such as the AfCFTA, headquartered in Accra.

She, therefore, commended the APN and the AfCFTA Secretariat for creating the APD platform, which, she said, brought together leaders across the board to dialogue and find solutions to lasting, sustainable development.

Prof. Opoku-Agyemang said the fragmented markets of Africa were a significant barrier to its economic potential, indicating further that while the continent boasted a population of 1.4 billion people and a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of more than $3.4 trillion, a significant part of the potential remained unfulfilled.

She added that it would continue to do so as the markets on the continent remained divided.

She further observed that power remained the most oppressive infrastructure gap in Africa, with over 30 countries experiencing frequent power outages.

Stronger partnerships

The Vice-President, therefore, stressed that the time had come to forge stronger partnerships with the private sector, saying: “Working together, we can bridge these gaps”.

She touted Ghana’s investments in the energy and digital infrastructure and said mobile technology had already revolutionised financial inclusion in Africa, where services such as mobile money platforms brought banking services to the unbanked and the consumer.

“In Ghana, we have prioritised mobile payments interoperability to ease trade and promote financial inclusion. Imagine the transformative impact of this technology.

“Imagine, if this technology was scaled across the continent to enable seamless transactions between businesses and consumers in different countries to expedite the single market agenda,” the Vice-President said, adding: “We must invest collectively in building robust digital infrastructure.”

Prof. Opoku-Agyemang said aside from connecting people and markets, the technology would also drive innovation and entrepreneurship.

She, therefore, called for an acceleration of the progress to ensure that Africa's dreams were realised for current and future generations.

Interoperability

The Chairperson of the APN Advisory Council, Dr Nkosazaana Dlamini Zuma, emphasised that the launch of the Mobile Money Interoperability Symposium had underscored the critical role of financial inclusion in economic integration.

In that regard, she said, the decision by the African Union (AU) Mid-Year Coordinating Meeting to adopt the continent-wide interoperability proposal was also a testament to the collective resolve to dismantle trade areas that had longed for economic growth.

Touching on the AfCFTA, Dr Zuma said it was a generational mandate to unite the economies of Africa and to facilitate trade and prosperity for all Africans.

She said the AfCFTA was the key that would free Africa from the economic chains that continued to keep the continent on the ground.

To realise that, Dr Zuma said, “we must invest, connect and integrate infrastructure as the lifeblood of any economy”.

“Africa must not merely consume, but it must create, produce and eat.

Our ambition cannot be limited to constructing roads and railways and roads.

We must own and manufacture the trains that are on land,” she advocated, adding that “We must unlock the potential of the ocean economy.

We must begin to own and manufacture the ships that dock in our apartments.”

The APN Council Chairperson said Africa must become the manufacturer of the future.

“We must beneficiate our minerals.

All the minerals that the world needs, we have, but we give them to the world and we do not use them for our own development,” she lamented.