President John Mahama has announced major economic reforms that will see Ghana purchase its cocoa using domestic financing and halt the export of raw mineral ores by 2030, in what he describes as a decisive break from long-standing foreign dependence.
Speaking at the close of his high-level side event, “Accra Reset’s Addis Reckoning,” on the margins of the African Union Assembly of Heads of State in Addis Ababa, Mr Mahama said Ghana would immediately stop relying on foreign funding to buy cocoa from farmers.
“One of the key decisions we’ve made is to stop accepting foreign funding for the purchase of our cocoa. We are going to raise domestic bonds. We have enough cedis in Ghana to pay for our cocoa,” he said.
For decades, Ghana has relied on syndicated foreign loans to finance cocoa purchases. Under those arrangements, cocoa beans are used as collateral. Mr Mahama said that system has restricted Ghana’s ability to add value to its own crop.
“You collateralise the beans with the financier, buy them, ship them, and they pay you the international market price,” he explained. “We have the capacity to process 400,000 tons of those beans in Ghana, but because they are collateralised, we cannot even allocate them to local processors. We must ship all the beans outside.”
He said the weaknesses in the current structure became clear during the recent cocoa market turbulence. Ghana fixed a producer price when international cocoa was trading at $7,200 per tonne and the cedi stood at 11.5 to the dollar. When prices later fell to $4,200 and the cedi appreciated to 10.7, the mismatch led to heavy losses.
Under the new plan, government will raise bonds in cedis to finance cocoa purchases locally, removing the need to pledge beans to foreign lenders. That, Mr Mahama said, will immediately free up 400,000 tonnes for domestic processing, creating jobs and keeping more value within the country.
Beyond cocoa, the President set a firm deadline for ending the export of unprocessed mineral ores.
“By 2030, there won’t be any raw mineral ores leaving Ghana,” he said. “You’re not going to ship raw manganese ore out of Ghana. You’re not going to ship raw bauxite ore out of Ghana. You’re not going to ship raw iron ore out of Ghana. You must process all that locally.”
The measures form part of what he calls the Accra Reset, a broader push for African countries to assert control over their natural resources and prioritise local industrialisation. He argued that the continent’s young population is demanding tangible economic opportunities, not policy promises.
“Our young people are less patient than our generation. They want to see progress and prosperity today,” he said, linking the urgency to irregular migration. “That is why Accra Reset needs that urgency to stop our young people from braving the dangers of the Sahara and the Mediterranean as they try to reach Europe in search of opportunity.”
Mr Mahama acknowledged that Africa has often agreed on frameworks but failed to implement them quickly. He called for faster action, even if it means a smaller group of countries moving ahead first.
“If parts of the continent are not ready, let’s form a coalition of the willing to move this as quickly as possible. And let all the others follow and join,” he said.
With the announcements from Addis Ababa, Ghana is positioning itself as a test case for resource sovereignty, betting that financing its own cocoa and processing its own minerals can shift more wealth and jobs back home. As Mr Mahama put it, “From Addis, we must stop talking and start implementing.”
