Commissioner for Health, Humanitarian Affairs and Social Development at the African Union Commission (AUC), Ama Twum-Amoah, has said Africa’s economic future depends on how well the continent empowers its women and young people.

Speaking at the 2026 Africa Prosperity Dialogue, held under the theme “Empowering SMEs, Women and Youth in Africa’s Single Market: Innovate, Collaborate, Trade”, Ms Twum-Amoah said that inclusion must be seen as an economic priority, not charity.

“Empowering women and youth is not a social gesture. It is an economic strategy for our continent. When women thrive, economies expand. When youth innovate, productivity rises. When opportunity is shared, stability follows. And we need that in Africa,” she said.

She warned that Africa cannot reach its full potential while large sections of its population remain excluded from opportunity.

“Africa cannot achieve prosperity while half of its potential is under-financed and its majority under-utilised,” she said.

Ms Twum-Amoah said that the African Union, working with partners such as the African Development Bank, AfriSam Bank, and the Africa Guarantee Fund, is taking steps to expand access to finance and strengthen enterprise ecosystems across the continent. However, she said that funding alone would not deliver prosperity.

“Finance alone is not enough. Prosperity requires policy coherence. It requires infrastructure. It requires skills, and it requires mobility. And above all, it requires political will.”

She cautioned that Africa’s challenge is not a lack of ideas, but a lack of decisive action.

“Africa’s integration will not be defeated by a lack of ideas. Indeed, we have lots of ideas, but by a lack of courage to implement them,” she said.

The AUC Commissioner called for urgent implementation of key African Union frameworks that support integration and inclusive trade.

“Critical AU instruments, including the Free Movement Protocol, the Single African Air Transport Market, the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System, and the Protocol on Women and Youth in Trade, must now move decisively from agreement to action. The era of signing must now give way to the era of delivery,” she said.

Ms Twum-Amoah said Africa’s prosperity must be driven from within, not imported from outside the continent.

“Africa’s prosperity will not be imported, but built by Africans, built by our entrepreneurs, powered by our own innovation and sustained through collaboration,” she said.

She added that future generations would judge today’s leaders by the opportunities they create, not the documents they sign.

“History will remember our generation not for the agreements we signed, but for the opportunities we unlock for Africa’s women, youth and entrepreneurs,” she said.

According to her, meaningful inclusion will allow Africa to play a stronger role in global trade.

“If we get this right, Africa will not merely participate in global trade, Africa will help shape it,” she said.

Ms Twum-Amoah said that Africa’s future lies beyond political offices and boardrooms.

“The future of this great continent will not be written solely in presidential palaces or corporate boardrooms. It will be written by the small business with a big idea, the young innovator bold enough to disrupt the status quo, and the woman entrepreneur transforming her community,” she said.

She urged Africans to see this moment as a turning point.

“Let this be the generation that moved Africa from fragmentation to unity, from potential to productivity, and from promise to prosperity. When Africa stood at the crossroads of integration, we did not hesitate. We chose courage. We chose unity. And we chose action," she said.