New Cocoa Pricing Pact to Raise Farmer Earnings in Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire

Attractive Mustapha
-
0
New Cocoa Pricing Pact to Raise Farmer Earnings in Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire

Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire have reached a landmark agreement to harmonise their cocoa farm-gate pricing policies in a move aimed at boosting farmer incomes, stabilising the market, and strengthening cooperation between the world’s two largest cocoa-producing nations.

The agreement was announced in a joint declaration issued by President John Mahama and President Alassane Ouattara following a high-level summit on the future of the cocoa economy held in Abidjan on Tuesday.

Both leaders emphasised the strategic importance of their countries in the global cocoa industry, noting that Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire together produce about 60 percent of the world’s cocoa. This dominant position, they said, places a responsibility on both nations to shape the future of the sector while improving the livelihoods of millions of farmers.

Under the new arrangement, the two countries will align their farm-gate pricing systems to enhance producer earnings, minimise market distortions, and deepen commercial collaboration. The initiative also includes closer coordination of cocoa markets, alignment of cocoa premiums, and harmonisation of crop-season calendars.

The policy shift is expected to significantly reduce cross-border competition and smuggling—long-standing challenges in the sector—while strengthening the bargaining power of both countries in the global cocoa market.

Presidents Mahama and Ouattara reaffirmed their commitment to ensuring fair compensation for cocoa farmers, describing it as essential to the long-term sustainability of the industry and critical to promoting economic justice and social stability in cocoa-growing communities.

The leaders also highlighted progress made under the Côte d’Ivoire-Ghana Cocoa Initiative, citing achievements such as the implementation of the Living Income Differential, coordinated price announcements, and joint efforts in cocoa traceability and sustainability standards.

However, the declaration acknowledged ongoing challenges facing the cocoa sector, including volatile global prices, illegal mining activities, climate change impacts, the increasing use of cocoa substitutes, and tightening international sustainability requirements.

Beyond pricing reforms, both countries pledged to strengthen scientific collaboration to combat cocoa diseases, particularly the Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus Disease, and to expand cocoa processing, value addition, and domestic consumption.

In a broader push to enhance Africa’s influence in the global cocoa trade, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire also announced plans to extend their cocoa initiative to other African producing nations, with the goal of harmonising policies across the continent and increasing collective bargaining power.

The agreement marks a significant step toward a more coordinated and resilient cocoa industry in West Africa, with far-reaching implications for farmers, governments, and global markets alike.

“Go for Gold!” — Bawumia Fires Up Black Stars Before Panama Showdown

Attractive Mustapha
-
0
“Go for Gold!” — Bawumia Fires Up Black Stars Before Panama Showdown

Former Vice President and New Patriotic Party (NPP) flagbearer, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has rallied support for the Black Stars ahead of their opening match against Panama at the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

The Ghana national team is set to begin its campaign on Wednesday, June 17, in Toronto, Canada, with high expectations from fans and stakeholders across the country.

In a goodwill message to the team, Dr Bawumia подчеркed the unifying power of football, describing it as a force that brings Ghanaians together and connects people across the world.

“Football has always been a part of us as a nation; it has always united us, and it brings the world together,” he said.

“As the Black Stars start their journey at the 2026 World Cup, I want to wish them the very best.”

Dr Bawumia expressed confidence in the team’s ability to deliver on the global stage and urged the players to draw inspiration from their past successes.

“Black Stars, you have done it before and you can do it again,” he stated.

“The nation is behind you, and I am also behind you. Go Black Stars and go for gold.”

His message adds to a growing wave of support from political leaders, football enthusiasts, and members of the Ghanaian community as the team prepares for its first appearance at the tournament.

The Black Stars will be aiming for a strong start against Panama as they seek to advance from the group stage and make a significant impact at the global showpiece.

Côte d’Ivoire–Ghana High-Level Summit on Cocoa Economy Joint Declaration

EDALL Chronicles
-
0
Côte d’Ivoire–Ghana High-Level Summit on Cocoa Economy Joint Declaration

At the meeting in Abidjan on June 16, 2026, on the occasion of the Côte d’Ivoire-Ghana High-Level Summit on the Future of the Cocoa Economy, H.E. Alassane OUATTARA, President of the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire, and H.E. John Dramani MAHAMA, President of the Republic of Ghana, renewed their shared commitment to promoting a sustainable cocoa economy, placing the farmer at the center of priorities for sector governance and value sharing.

This commitment is built on the Abidjan Declaration of March 26, 2018, which serves as the foundation for cooperation between the two States in the cocoa sector.

Following a review of the progress made in recent years, the two Heads of State:

– Considering that Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana account for about 60% of global cocoa production, which confers upon them shared leadership and a special responsibility for the future of the sector;
– Recognizing that notable achievements of their joint efforts are the creation of the Côte d’Ivoire-Ghana Cocoa Initiative (CIGCI), the establishment of the Living Income Differential (LID), the harmonization of marketing and price announcements to producers, the implementation of traceability and the African Regional Standards for Sustainable Cocoa (ARS-1000), and the cooperation between research institutes to combat the Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus Disease (CSSVD);
– Aware that the sector remains exposed to major challenges such as price volatility, illegal gold mining, adverse effects of climate change, the rise in the use of cocoa substitutes and equivalents, and the increasing demands of international sustainability regulations;
– Aware that Africa, which accounts for about 80% of global production, still captures only a marginal share of the value in the cocoa-chocolate supply chain;
– Convinced that fair remuneration for farmers is a pillar of the sector’s sustainability and a requirement for economic justice and social stability.

Consequently, agree to:

– Harmonize farm-gate price policies to optimize producer remuneration, stabilize the market and strengthen their commercial cooperation through several key measures, including market synergy, the alignment of premiums and the harmonization of crop-season calendars;

– Guarantee producers fair and decent remuneration and place them at the heart of the cocoa value chain;

– Strengthen scientific cooperation with a focus on the integrated management of cocoa diseases, especially Swollen Shoot;

– Create added value by increasing processing capacity, encouraging regional and continental trade, and stimulating national and regional consumption of cocoa-based products;

– Expand the Côte d’Ivoire-Ghana Cocoa Initiative to other African countries, to enhance regional cooperation, harmonize sector policies, strengthen collective bargaining power on global markets, and coordinate responses to the emerging challenges of the cocoa economy.

DONE AT ABIDJAN, ON JUNE 16, 2026

H.E. ALASSANE OUATTARA
PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF CÔTE D’IVOIRE

H.E. JOHN DRAMANI MAHAMA
PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF GHANA

Ghanaian Report Exposes Africa’s US$8 Billion Remittance Drain

Roger A. Agana
-
0
Ghanaian Report Exposes Africa’s US$8 Billion Remittance Drain

Africa handles 74 percent of global mobile money volume and still loses $8 billion a year to remittance fees. That contradiction is the central finding of a new report by Accra’s Affinity Africa, Yale University and the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, released this month.

Titled “The State of Cash Dependency and Digital Financial Inclusion in Africa,” it finds that the continent has built advanced payment infrastructure without changing the economics that keep merchants, workers and households dependent on physical cash. More than 90 percent of mobile money value is converted back to cash the moment it arrives, a pattern the report calls the “cash in, cash out trap.”

Ghana is named among only four countries classified as Catalytic Markets, the continent’s most advanced digital payment economies, alongside Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. The report says these four nations face a different problem from the rest of Africa. Access is no longer the issue. Depth is. Merchant acceptance at scale, interoperability with instant settlement, and regulatory conditions enabling fintechs to extend credit and savings at scale are where the gaps remain. Ghana became one of the first African countries to mandate full mobile money interoperability in 2018, yet the report’s broader findings make clear that one policy step alone has not solved the depth problem.

“The cost of that gap compounds every year,” Dr Tarek Mouganie, Ghanaian entrepreneur and Group Chief Executive of Affinity Africa, wrote in the report.

For individual households, the losses are concrete. A migrant worker sending $200 home to Africa pays an average fee of 8.7 percent per transfer, nearly three times the global average of 3.1 percent and well above the Sustainable Development Goal target of 3 percent. On roughly $95 billion in remittances received across the continent in 2023, those fees total approximately $8 billion drained from household incomes in transit.

The worst corridors put the problem in numbers. The Tanzania to Uganda route, two countries sharing a land border, cost a migrant 39.1 percent to send $200 in 2023. A Nigerian migrant in the United States paid 2.3 percent on the same transfer. It costs more to send money across a land border than across an ocean, a fact the report attributes to the absence of integrated payment infrastructure within Africa.

Cash dependency also shuts small businesses out of credit. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) account for roughly 80 percent of jobs across Africa and over 90 percent of private sector businesses in the region. They receive around 5.4 percent of bank credit. The International Finance Corporation estimates the SME financing gap at $330 billion annually. Cash businesses leave no transaction records, so lenders have no basis for assessing creditworthiness.

The problem, the report argues, is not technology. It is incentives. For a street vendor processing $5 transactions, accepting cash costs nothing, settles instantly and requires no device. Accepting digital payments costs between 1 and 3 percent per transaction. Until that equation changes, behavior will not shift regardless of how much infrastructure gets built.

The report recommends three coordinated actions. First, regulators should cap merchant fees on transactions below defined thresholds and require digital acceptance for all government payments. Second, mandatory interoperability across all licensed providers should replace voluntary frameworks, which incumbents have rational incentives to resist. Third, mobile money operators should be licensed to offer credit, savings and insurance products, giving users a financial reason to keep balances digital rather than converting them to cash immediately.

Case studies from India, Brazil and Ethiopia inform the recommendations. Brazil’s PIX, an instant payment system mandated by the central bank in 2020, processed over 5 billion transactions in its first year and represented more than 30 percent of all electronic payments in Brazil by the end of 2023.

The research was produced with input from Kwame Oppong, former Head of Fintech and Innovation at the Bank of Ghana. It is the first publication from an extended collaboration between Affinity Africa, the International Leadership Center at Yale and the Mo Ibrahim Foundation.

Namibia Oil Conference Targets Local Jobs as Key Decision Nears

Roger A. Agana
-
0
Namibia Oil Conference Targets Local Jobs as Key Decision Nears

Namibia’s oil and gas conference returns to Windhoek in August with local employment driving its agenda, as TotalEnergies pushes toward a final investment decision on the Venus field this year.

Scheduled for 18 to 20 August, the Namibia Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition (NOGC) 2026 arrives at a turning point for the country. TotalEnergies, operator of the offshore Venus field, is targeting a final investment decision (FID) this year, with first oil projected for 2030. Namibia’s total hydrocarbon potential has been estimated at 11 billion barrels of oil, a figure that has drawn global energy operators to a country that barely registered on the international exploration map a decade ago.

Hosted by the Economic Association of Namibia (EAN) and endorsed by the Ministry of Industries, Mines and Energy, the fourth edition runs under the theme “From Decision to Dividend: Making Namibia’s Oil Work for Namibians.” The framing is pointed. Local content rules, workforce pipelines and procurement frameworks established before production begins are notoriously difficult to renegotiate after the oil starts to flow.

EAN Chief Executive Cons Karamata set the measure for what progress actually means: “Its success cannot be measured solely by discoveries, investment announcements or production figures.”

The 2026 programme introduces tools the previous edition lacked. The Namibia Investment Promotion and Development Board (NIPDB) will host Local Content Pitching Sessions, where Namibian businesses can put their case directly to operators and investors. Supplier workshops, also run by NIPDB, are designed to link local entrepreneurs with procurement chains across the oil and gas sector.

An opening day on 18 August focuses on youth skills and workforce pathways. EAN Chairperson Jason Kasuto said technical training would reach coastal towns including Lüderitz and Walvis Bay, the communities sitting closest to the offshore licence areas. TotalEnergies has already scheduled a three-well exploration campaign at the nearby Mopane complex this year, meaning contractor activity in those towns is already building.

Main conference sessions run from 19 to 20 August. Day one, “Industry in Action: Operators, Independents and Finance,” covers project development and upstream investment. Day two addresses small and medium enterprise participation, infrastructure and long term energy sustainability. A parallel technical programme runs across both days, covering digital innovation, emerging trends and policy developments.

The 2025 conference drew close to 2,000 delegates and filled 73 exhibition stands. Philip Mshelbila, Secretary General of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, who took office in January 2026, is among confirmed speakers for August.

Strategic partners include the National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (NAMCOR), SNC Incorporated and Rhino Resources. The Hanns Seidel Foundation joins as a hosting partner.

World Bank Backs Ghana’s Bid to End Double Track

Roger A. Agana
-
0
World Bank Backs Ghana’s Bid to End Double Track

The World Bank has approved $300 million to help Ghana scrap the double track school system by 2027 and ease overcrowding that Free Senior High School set off in 2017.

The money, concessional financing from the Bank’s International Development Association (IDA), will run through the Secondary Education Transformation for Access, Relevance and Results for Jobs (STARR-J) project, managed by the Ministry of Education. It is meant to reach 2.2 million students, including learners with disabilities, across almost 1,000 public secondary schools, with the heaviest focus on rural and outlying areas.

At its heart is the double track problem. Free Senior High School, introduced in 2017, drove a roughly 60 percent jump in enrolment that classrooms and teachers could not absorb, and schools turned to a rotation system that splits the student body into two streams with long breaks at home. At the 2018 peak, well over half of the country’s senior high schools ran on it. The government wants every school off the system by 2027, and the Bank’s money is aimed squarely at that target. Public schools are otherwise projected to be short more than 850,000 seats by 2040.

The financing will pay to build, rehabilitate and equip classrooms, laboratories and workshops, and to strengthen teaching in core subjects and digital skills. A large share goes to technical and vocational education, where the plan is to shift training away from chalkboard theory toward hands on practice. It also funds reforms to how subject teachers are posted and how the system tracks results.

The sum grew over time. Ghana first secured an offer of $180 million at last year’s International Monetary Fund and World Bank Spring Meetings before the figure nearly doubled, and the project follows an earlier $174 million programme that targeted weak basic schools. “This project is a major investment in Ghana’s growing youthful population,” Education Minister Haruna Iddrisu said.

Robert Taliercio, the Bank’s division director for Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, said the financing tackles some of the most pressing strains in secondary schooling. The harder question is whether new building can finally outrun an enrolment curve that has stayed ahead of it for the better part of a decade.

Wealthy Families Spread Bets Across Five Economic Hubs

Roger A. Agana
-
0
Wealthy Families Spread Bets Across Five Economic Hubs

Family offices are tilting their portfolios toward five rising economic hubs, the US, China, India, the Gulf and Southeast Asia, according to one global advisory firm tracking the very wealthy.

The claim comes from deVere Group, whose family office arm, launched in 2024, says rich families are broadening their exposure as growth, capital and influence spread beyond the long dominant pairing of the United States and China. By the firm’s estimate, family offices oversee more than $6 trillion worldwide, a figure it expects to climb past $9 trillion by 2030. “Family offices invest across generations, not quarters,” said deVere chief executive Nigel Green.

The wider data points the same way. The United States is still the largest economy and the leader in artificial intelligence, and China remains the hub of global manufacturing and trade. But the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reckons emerging and developing economies will drive roughly 70 percent of global growth in the years ahead, and the World Bank already puts their share of world output near 60 percent when measured by purchasing power parity.

India is the clearest example. It is the fastest growing major economy, with the IMF projecting about 6.5 percent growth this year. Its ranking by the size of its economy has wobbled on currency swings, slipping to around sixth on the Fund’s nominal table this year, but forecasters expect it to climb into the top three by the end of the decade.

The Gulf is pulling in capital of its own. Sovereign wealth funds in the region hold well above $4 trillion, close to 40 percent of the world’s total, while Dubai and Abu Dhabi keep drawing entrepreneurs and mobile fortunes. The United Arab Emirates has become one of the leading destinations for migrating millionaires.

Southeast Asia rounds out the list. Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines are gaining from young populations, rising spending and factories shifting in from elsewhere, across a region of more than 680 million people.

deVere frames the move as a rebalancing rather than a retreat from established markets. One feature of its map is worth noting: the five hubs leave out Africa and Latin America entirely. Whether the next wave of growth proves as concentrated in these centres as the firm expects will take years to test.

Minority Disputes US$85m Demand Over Afari Hospital

News Ghana
-
0
Minority Disputes US$85m Demand Over Afari Hospital

Parliament’s minority says only about $500,000 is needed to finish the stalled Afari Military Hospital, rejecting the government’s account that the contractor is demanding $85 million to return to the site.

The 500 bed hospital in Afari, in the Ashanti Region, has yet to be commissioned. Deputy Defence Minister Brogya Genfi said this month that the contractor, Euroget De-Invest, had left the site and was claiming $85 million in two parts, $7 million under one head and $78 million under another. He put the hospital at about 60 percent complete overall, with civil and architectural works almost finished but biomedical and mechanical installations at roughly 5 percent.

The minority tells a very different story. Kofi Amankwa-Manu, Member of Parliament for Atwima Kwanwoma and a former chairman of the project’s implementation unit at the Defence Ministry, said records at the Finance and Defence ministries show only around $500,000 outstanding. He said the original $180 million contract and a further $19.3 million agreed for delays had both been paid, and that the hospital was 98 percent complete by January 2025, when the previous government left office. He called the larger demand criminal and likened any payment of it to a “create, loot and share” scheme.

Minority members of Parliament’s Health Committee visited the site this month and said it was slipping backwards. The committee’s ranking member, Dr Nana Ayew Afriye, reported rusting equipment and an overgrown compound, and warned that the delay was holding back care in the region.

The two sides agree on little. They differ on how much is owed, how far the building has progressed and who is to blame, with the minority casting the matter as mismanagement by the governing National Democratic Congress and the government saying it is trying to rescue a project it inherited unfinished. The contractor’s two claims have not been independently reconciled against the ministries’ records.

“We demand value for money, and we will protect the public purse,” Amankwa-Manu said, vowing to resist any approval of the disputed sum.

For now the hospital, meant to widen access to care in one of Ghana’s most populous regions, stands idle while the figures are fought over.

Police Arrest Suspect in UCC Student’s Murder

News Ghana
-
0
Police Arrest Suspect in UCC Student’s Murder

Police have arrested a man, 39, in Cape Coast over the killing of Innocentia Atsufui Avinu, a University of Cape Coast (UCC) student whose death has unsettled the campus.

The Ghana Police Service named the suspect as Michael Mensah and said he was picked up on Monday, June 15, at about 7:15 p.m. at the Pedu Lorry Station in Cape Coast. Officers from the Inspector General of Police’s Cyber Vetting and Enforcement Team made the arrest after what the service called a sustained, intelligence led operation. Mensah is in custody helping with inquiries and has not been charged.

By the police account, the suspect, who they say describes himself as a teacher and also works as a driver, picked Avinu up from Ayensu Plaza in the UCC hostel area on June 11 at about 6:48 p.m. and drove her to Hutchland Beach, where she was last seen. Investigators have not given a motive or said how she died.

Avinu, 20, was a Level 200 Bachelor of Commerce student. She left her private hostel at Amamoma that evening after telling her roommate she was going to meet someone, and did not return. Her body was found at Hutchland Beach, near Duakor, about 12 hours after she was last seen.

Police have also pushed back on claims spreading online about the state of her body, saying those reports are false. The case has stirred worry among students about safety around the university’s hostels.

The service said its investigation continues and asked the public to stay calm and let officers finish their work.

Partey Barred From Canada, Misses Ghana’s World Cup Opener

News Ghana
-
0
Partey Barred From Canada, Misses Ghana’s World Cup Opener

Thomas Partey will miss Ghana’s World Cup opener against Panama on Wednesday after a Canadian court refused to overturn the visa ban keeping the midfielder out of Toronto.

The Federal Court in Ottawa dismissed his appeal on Tuesday, a day before kickoff. Judge Roger Lafreniere ruled that an immigration officer was entitled to refuse the visa without waiting for a conviction, since reasonable grounds to believe an offence had been committed were enough in law. The judge also pointed to concerns that Partey’s application had not fully set out information the authorities had asked for.

The visa was tied to criminal proceedings in Britain. Partey faces seven counts of rape and one of sexual assault, brought over allegations by four women between 2020 and 2022, and he denies all of them. He is due to stand trial next year. The former Arsenal player, now at Villarreal, has been free to keep playing under his bail terms.

The bar applies only to Canada, so the blow is limited to one match. Partey can rejoin the squad for Ghana’s other group games, against England in Boston on June 23 and Croatia in Philadelphia on June 27, both staged in the United States.

Ghana’s foreign ministry had backed the player and called the refusal high handed and unfair. Coach Carlos Queiroz, who named Partey in his squad on the grounds that he is presumed innocent, said the case would not unsettle his preparations. “We have a plan, and it includes all 26 players,” he told reporters.

A team source played down the sporting cost, telling ESPN the coach’s plan for Panama was set and a different verdict would have changed little so close to kickoff. Ghana could yet return to Canada in the knockout rounds, depending on results, which would put the same restriction back in play.

123...49,430Page 2 of 49,430