Africa must take greater control of its development agenda, resources and decision-making processes, speakers at a major development convening in Accra have said.

The call was made at the three-day Africa at the Centre: Leading Change, Shifting Power convening, which opened in Accra on Tuesday.

The event has brought together more than 200 leaders from 30 countries, including civil society actors, policymakers, development practitioners, philanthropists, researchers, social innovators and members of the African diaspora.

The participants are examining ways to strengthen African leadership, redefine development partnerships, mobilise local resources and ensure that communities have a greater role in determining development priorities.

Delivering the welcome address, Executive Director of the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI), Dr Nana Asantewa Afadzinu, said Africa should no longer be on the margins of decisions about its own development.

“A bird cannot fly on borrowed wings. Africa belongs at the centre. Africa actually is the centre,” she said.

Dr Afadzinu said African societies had developed systems of trade, governance, science, innovation and social organisation long before colonial rule.

However, she said historical injustices and external influences had contributed to a development system in which key priorities, funding arrangements and measures of success were often determined outside the continent.

“For too long, Africans have been asked to implement priorities they did not define within systems they did not design,” she stated.

She said shrinking donor funding and multiple global crises presented an opportunity for Africa to reconsider how development is financed, designed and implemented.

“This moment gives us a choice: simply adjust to a changing development system, or use the moment to rethink who shapes it, who resources it and whose knowledge defines its future,” she said.

According to Dr Afadzinu, shifting power goes beyond placing Africans at decision-making tables.

She said it must involve African institutions having greater control over resources, setting development priorities and determining what constitutes success.

Delivering the keynote address, Presidential Special Envoy for Reparations, Dr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, called for development models anchored in African confidence, innovation and strategic leadership.

He said Africa possessed significant human and natural resources but continued to face structural weaknesses, fragmented approaches and an overreliance on external actors.

He called for stronger African institutions and leadership committed to long-term development, while urging governments, civil society, academia and the private sector to work together to build systems that reflect African realities and aspirations.

He also stressed the importance of investing in young people, innovation and knowledge generation to strengthen Africa's competitiveness and reduce dependence on external support.

Joining the discussions virtually, UK Member of Parliament for Clapham and Brixton Hill, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, linked development with reparatory justice, arguing that both were ultimately questions of power, inclusion and self-determination.

“For most of our lifetime, development has been something done to our people rather than by them,” she said.

She argued that although development institutions increasingly use terms such as partnership, localisation and community-led development, decision-making power often remains outside Africa.

“If we want different outcomes, the power itself has to move, not the language around the power, but the power itself,” she stressed.

Ms Ribeiro-Addy said the transatlantic slave trade and colonialism had stripped Africans of agency and control over their destinies.

“Agency was the crime and agency has to be the remedy,” she said.

She also challenged the assumption that solutions to Africa's challenges must necessarily come from outside the continent.

“The knowledge was never missing. What has been missing is the respect, the resources and the willingness to let that knowledge lead,” she stated.

The convening will examine the issue through three thematic phases: Remember and Locate, which focuses on the historical and structural forces shaping current development systems; Disrupt and Reimagine, which explores alternatives centred on African leadership and self-determination; and Build and Steward, which seeks to translate ideas into lasting commitments and collaborative action.

Organisers say the objective is to move discussions about African ownership beyond rhetoric and towards practical measures that give Africans greater control over decisions affecting the continent's development.

This story was a collaboration with New Narratives.