Ghanaian Vice President Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang on Wednesday urged African countries to pursue aggressive digital integration as a concrete step toward the continent’s valued economic sovereignty.
Opoku-Agyemang said during the opening of the 2026 3i Africa Summit that Africa must build strong synergies through digital integration.
“Valued economic sovereignty now also depends on integration, particularly digital integration, because this is where value is created, exchanged, and controlled,” she said.
According to her, Africa has already demonstrated its capacity to leapfrog legacy systems. “Mobile money, digital identity, and financial technology have showcased what is possible.”
The task now, Opoku-Agyemang noted, is more about moving from pockets of progress to a continental scale, adding that the integration of Africa’s digital economies requires payment, identity, regulation, and infrastructure.
According to the vice president, the continued routing of intra-African transactions through financial systems outside the continent adds costs and delays while undermining the very idea of a single African market through platforms like the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System.
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“This calls for investments in broadband cloud infrastructure. Cloud infrastructure and digital systems must also come with regulatory and policy alignments,” she said, emphasizing that these alignments are crucial to ensure data sovereignty and protect user rights in the digital landscape.
She announced that Ghana will work with Zambia, Rwanda, and other countries to pilot a continental digital trade corridor, which will focus on mobile money interoperability, mutual recognition of digital identity, and electronic invoicing.
