Your call for transparency, responsible borrowing, and complete parliamentary oversight reflects the urgent need to rebuild public trust in fiscal governance. You spoke for the continent when you demanded that debt must serve as a developmental catalyst for financing education, healthcare, and infrastructure, not a straitjacket that restricts public investment and undermines social progress. The clarity of your support for African-led credit rating institutions, the African Monetary Fund, debt-for-climate swaps, and a Pan-African Payment and Settlement System is timely and courageous.

In that spirit, ITUC-Africa is pleased to formally announce Ghana as the host country for the Pan-African Rally for Debt Cancellation, to be held on Friday, August 29, 2025, in partnership with the Trades Union Congress (TUC) Ghana at the sidelines of the African Conference on Debt and Development (AfCODD). This year’s theme for AfCODD, co-hosted by AFRODAD, ITUC-Africa, and partners, is "Reparations and Reparative Justice for an African Financial Architecture and Transformation." This rally decision is rooted in both symbolism and strategy. Ghana was the first sub-Saharan African country to gain independence, a beacon of enduring democracy and continental self-determination. Today, as your leadership in Lomé reaffirmed, Ghana stands again as a voice of conscience and resolve in the fight for a fair and people-centred international financial system.

Mr President, ITUC-Africa is a pan-African trade union organisation that represents African working women and men in 52 African countries, including Ghana. We are committed to taking tangible actions that will advance and contribute to the actualisation of African development aspirations, anchored in peace, stability, shared prosperity, and social justice. We have been actively engaged on the advocacy front for internal resource mobilisation to finance Africa’s development, particularly in the provision of social goods.

The planned rally in Accra will be more than a public mobilisation. It will be a clarion call to action across the continent. Drawing lessons from the Stop the Bleeding campaign in Lusaka, where mass action helped reignite, stalled debt rescheduling negotiations for Zambia. Aside from using the rally to create and deepen public awareness, education and mobilisation to reverse debt overhang, we aim to press creditors, institutions, and governments toward tangible reforms and more profound debt relief. With Accra’s strategic positioning and historical significance, we anticipate significant regional and international attention.

Your Excellency, we believe that your continued voice and visibility on this issue will be pivotal in transforming the Lomé Declaration from a policy milestone into a mass movement. We look forward to your moral support and the possibility of your presence at the rally.

Please accept our highest regard and continued solidarity.

Yours sincerely,
Akhator Joel Odigie.
General Secretary ITUC-Africa