African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretary-General His Excellency Wamkele Mene has declared that building a fully interoperable and integrated African digital economy is no longer a distant aspiration but an immediate operational imperative, urging the continent to stop deliberating and start executing.
Mene made the remarks during a fireside chat at the Accra Reset’s Addis Reckoning, a high-level side event held on the margins of the 39th African Union (AU) Assembly of Heads of State and Government in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The gathering brought together government officials, private sector leaders, international partners, and civil society representatives to chart a bold, action-oriented path toward African prosperity.
Speaking at the event, Mene spotlighted the AfCFTA’s Digital Trade Protocol as a driver of a projected 712 billion dollar African digital economy by 2050, and highlighted practical tools including local currency payment systems to eliminate conversion costs, an AfCFTA Hub designed for micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) inclusion, and interoperable systems built to preserve national sovereignty. “Eliminate this cost of currency convertibility to ignite small and medium enterprise capacity,” he said.
President Mahama, who chaired the closing session, credited Mene’s intervention for crystallising the case for urgent intra-African payment reform. “One of the issues he raised was why, as an SME in Accra or Ghana, I want to export my goods to my compatriots in Kenya, and yet I must convert my local currency into a third-party currency, then exchange it again to pay my colleague SME in Kenya,” Mahama recounted. “So, the Pan-African payment and settlement system is a thing whose time has come, and with urgency.”
The Accra Reset is an initiative championed by President John Dramani Mahama of Ghana to reimagine global governance frameworks for health, development, and economic sovereignty in the era after the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). At the summit, Mahama announced sweeping reforms including plans for Ghana to purchase its cocoa in domestic currency and to cease the export of raw mineral ores from 2030.
Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo commended Mahama for championing the Accra Reset agenda, describing it as an important tool for advancing Africa’s self-reliance. Former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and former AU Chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma were also among the prominent voices at the event, with Dlamini-Zuma stressing that intra-African trade remains stuck at around 16 percent of the continent’s total trade, and calling for an African passport and pan-African payment systems as non-negotiable priorities.
President Mahama closed the session by calling for a coalition of the willing to drive reforms quickly, warning that the continent cannot afford its familiar pattern of ambitious frameworks without urgent implementation. “We come with the decisions. We agree. We do the frameworks. What is missing is urgency and implementation,” he said.
