Keynote at the Fifth African Conference on Debt and Development (AfCoDD V) in Accra

ACCRA, Ghana - The Fifth African Conference on Debt and Development (AfCoDD V) (external link) opened in Accra on Wednesday, August 27, bringing together policymakers, scholars, trade unionists, feminists, youth leaders, and activists from across the continent and the diaspora. They gathered to demand a radical rethinking of Africa’s debt crisis.

AfaLab was represented by our Executive Director and co-founder, Liliane Umubyeyi, (external link)PhD and Lavender Namdiero, our strategic campaigner, (external link) whose participation anchored the Lab's commitment to advancing a global reparations agenda. They joined continental leaders calling for a radical rethinking of Africa's debt crisis.  

The conference, themed “Africa’s Debt Crisis: A Reparations and Reparative Justice Framework Analysis,” ran until Friday, August 29, and was hosted by the African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD). (external link)

The event was preceded on Tuesday by the Opa Kapijimpanga Lecture, delivered virtually by Roger McKenzie, International Editor of the Morning Star and author of African Uhuru.

McKenzie argued that Africa’s liberation must come from within and warned against reliance on external saviours.

Respondents included Prof. Attiya Waris, UN Independent Expert on Foreign Debt, and Dinah Musindarwezo, international gender and development consultant, both of whom underscored the urgency of treating debt as a question of reparative justice.

AfCoDD V officially opened on Wednesday at the Mövenpick Ambassador Hotel with reflections from Liliane Umubyeyi, PhD, our executive director and co-founder (external link), who delivered a keynote address that grounded the moment in the long arc of global racial injustice and the need for reparations. Her keynote spotlighted the structural roots of Africa’s debt crisis and affirmed Afalab’s leadership in shaping the global reparations agenda.

A keynote followed from Sir Hilary Beckles, Chair of the CARICOM Reparations Commission.

Solidarity statements came from:

• African Union Commission
• AFROPAC (African Parliamentarians Network)
• ITUC-Africa
• Trust Africa
• Hon. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Ghana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration

Plenary sessions explored the political economy of Africa’s debt, the global reparations movement, and strategies for reframing debt justice.

Thursday’s program examined core justice dimensions:

• Debt and Reparations: Addressed colonial legacies, illicit financial flows, and reparatory frameworks.
• Debt and Climate Justice: Linked Africa’s debt burden to climate vulnerability and environmental reparations.
• Debt and Gender Justice: Explored how debt disproportionately affects women and other marginalised groups.
• Debt and Labor Justice: ITUC-Africa and trade unions presented the Labor Sustainability Framework.

Parallel sessions covered:

• Domestic accountability frameworks
• Resource extraction and corporate responsibility
• African-led alternatives to IMF and World Bank orthodoxy
• Community-led narratives on sovereignty and justice

Friday centered on movement building and public mobilization.

Highlights included:

• Youth Voices for Debt Justice: Launch of the Youth FfD4 Accountability Collective
• Trade Union and Feminist Convergences: Joint declarations on labor and gender perspectives
• Regional and Pan-African Strategies: Collective refusal, debt cancellation advocacy, and cross-regional organising
• The day culminated in the Pan-African Debt Rally from Kwame Nkrumah Circle to Independence Square, where civil society groups delivered petitions, staged performances, and called for a united African stance on debt cancellation and reparations.

AfCoDD V positioned debt not simply as an economic challenge but as part of a longer history of extraction — from the transatlantic slave trade to colonial plunder to modern financial dependency.

By linking Africa’s debt crisis to reparations and reparative justice, the conference reframed the debate from aid to historical accountability.

Hon. Ablakwa noted in a pre-conference statement that debt justice was about repairing centuries of harm and reclaiming Africa’s sovereignty.

With more than a dozen plenaries, breakout sessions, and side events, AfCoDD V became one of the continent’s boldest platforms for uniting economic justice with reparative justice.

From high-level figures to grassroots organisers, the gathering worked to forge a collective front against debt dependency and to demand reparations for centuries of extraction.

As delegates left Accra, the central message remained: Africa’s freedom depended on breaking the chains of debt and claiming reparative justice.