More than 200 delegates from 57 countries across Africa, the Caribbean, and the global diaspora gathered in Accra, Ghana, for the International Conference of the Pan-African Progressive Front.
The conference, which marked the 80th anniversary of the Fifth Pan-African Congress held in Manchester in 1945, had discussions surrounding mechanisms for full compensation for centuries of colonial exploitation and plunder.
The event’s motto, “From Historical Memory to Economic and Political Justice,” reflects the participants’ determination to move beyond acknowledging historical injustices toward concrete political action.
The conference was officially opened by Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama, the African Union’s Champion for Reparations.
Prominent attendees included former Ghanaian President John Kofi Agyekum Kufuor, Congolese opposition leader Martin Fayulu, General Secretary of South Africa’s largest trade union NUMSA Irvin Jim, leader of Zambia’s Socialist Party Fred M’membe, as well as the United States Chargé d’Affaires in Ghana, Rolf Olson. His presence underscored the truly global scale of the reparations discourse today.
The conference culminated in the adoption of the Accra Declaration — a programmatic document blending political will with specific demands.
The Declaration reaffirms the inalienable right of Africans and people of African descent to full reparations. It calls for establishing a global framework of reparatory justice based on restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction, and guarantees of non-repetition.
The document also supports the creation of multi-level reparations bodies — national, regional, and continental — and strengthening cooperation among Africa, the Caribbean, and the diaspora.
A key element of the Declaration is a call for former colonial powers to acknowledge their responsibility and engage in official reparations negotiations.
One of the conference participants, Ouzeirou Mamane, president of the Pan-African Movement for Reparations, Justice, and Restoration of Historical Memory, emphasised:
“It is very important that we have moved to practical steps. Equally important is the fact that the conference included not only representatives from the African continent and Latin America but also a representative of the U.S. embassy.
This signifies that Africa’s partners across the ocean understand not only the issue of reparations but also the just expectations of Africans vis-à-vis Europe.”
Accra has once again reinforced its role as the beating heart of Pan-Africanism, breathing new life into the ideas of liberation and justice. Africa demonstrates that it is no longer asking — it is demanding and taking its future into its own hands.
This conference represents a crucial step forward in realising the legacy of Kwame Nkrumah, who once said: “Ghana’s independence is meaningless unless it is linked to the total liberation of Africa.”
