October 2, 2026 In Newsroom By WACSI
Africa At the Centre: Calls Grow for Africans to Shape their own Development Agenda
| Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... |
[Accra, Ghana, 16 September 2026] — Africa must have greater control over the decisions, resources and knowledge that shape its development, participants at a three-day convening in Accra have said, urging a shift from African participation in existing development systems to greater African leadership in shaping them.
More than 250 civil society leaders, policymakers, researchers, funders, social innovators, youth leaders, diaspora representatives and development practitioners from Africa and beyond participated in Africa at the Centre: Leading Change, Shifting Power, held from 1 to 3 September.
The convening was organised by the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI), EPIC-Africa, the African Foundation for Development (AFFORD) UK, Reos Partners and Re-imagining the INGO (RINGO), with support from the Hewlett Foundation.
At the heart of the three-day conversation was a question with implications for how development is financed, designed and delivered: who sets the agenda, who controls resources, whose knowledge counts and who defines success?
Opening the convening, Dr Nana Asantewa Afadzinu, Executive Director of WACSI, said Africa should not have to seek inclusion in decisions about its own future.
“Africa does not need to be invited to the centre of its own development. A bird cannot fly on borrowed wings. Africa belongs at the centre. Africa actually is the centre.”
She said shifting power requires more than ensuring African voices are represented in decision-making spaces.
“Power is not only about who sits at the table. It is about who sets the agenda, who controls resources, whose knowledge counts, and who defines success or failure.”
The organising partners brought different perspectives to what such a shift should mean in practice.
Mpinane Senkhane, Communication Lead at Reos Partners, challenged participants to consider what those who currently hold power would need to relinquish for power to genuinely shift. The Reos Partners perspective emphasised moving beyond representation towards African agency in defining priorities, shaping solutions and determining success.
Stella Opoku-Owusu, CEO of AFFORD UK, similarly highlighted the need to rethink development systems and the structures through which resources and decisions flow, arguing for approaches grounded in African leadership, knowledge and lived realities.
For Rose Maruru, Co-founder and CEO of EPIC-Africa, the distinction between representation and influence was clear.
“A seat at the table is not the power to shape the table.”
She said putting Africa at the centre requires “more Africans setting our agenda, more Africans controlling our own resources, more recognition of African knowledge and lived experience, more Africans deciding what success looks like.”
The discussion then moved from principles to practical questions of financing, accountability and local agency.
Charles Kojo Vandyck, Head of Capacity Development at WACSI, called for communities to move beyond being treated as beneficiaries of development programmes and towards greater ownership of decisions and resources. He also stressed that domestic financing must be accompanied by accountability.
Ghana’s Presidential Special Envoy for Reparations, Ambassador Dr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, linked African agency to economic sovereignty and the need to rethink how the continent finances its development. UK Member of Parliament Bell Ribeiro-Addy questioned whether the growing language of localisation and partnership had been matched by a corresponding transfer of decision-making power.
The programme moved through three stages: Remember and Locate, Disrupt and Reimagine, and Build and Steward, taking participants from examining the histories and structures shaping development to exploring alternatives and considering how those alternatives could be translated into action.
The convening also created space for practical initiatives through the Ideas in Motion process and a pitch competition, while discussions explored community-led resource mobilisation, alternative financing and new forms of partnership.
Rather than concluding with a single declaration, WACSI and its partners are continuing the conversation through documentation and practical follow-up. WACSI’s thematic insight briefs capture the key ideas, tensions and experiments that emerged from the convening, providing a basis for examining whether power, resources, knowledge and accountability are actually shifting.
For WACSI, the conversation in Accra was ultimately about moving beyond the question of whether Africa should be at the centre of development.
It was about who has the power to shape what happens at that centre, and what it will take to put that power in African hands.
Watch full videos of the convening Here.
About the author
- WACSI
- WACSI
- WACSI
- WACSI
- WACSI
- WACSI
- WACSI
- WACSI
- WACSI
- WACSI
- WACSI
- WACSI
- WACSI
- WACSI
- WACSI
- WACSI
- WACSI
- WACSI
- WACSI
- WACSI
- WACSI
- WACSI
- WACSI
- WACSI
- WACSI
- WACSI
- WACSI
