Vice President Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang has addressed the Africa Growth and Opportunity: Research in Action (AGORA) 2025 Conference in Palermo, Italy, urging symmetry in trade between Africa and the rest of the world. 

The AGORA 2025 Conference brought together policymakers, the private sector and think tanks from Africa and Europe to tackle the continent’s most urgent priorities: job creation and growth.  

Co-hosted by the World Bank Group Institute for Economic Development with the Bank of Italy, Italy’s Ministry of Economy and Finance, and African partners, AGORA is an instrument for turning evidence into action, shaping policies, and building partnerships that deliver results. 

“Ghana’s journey mirrors Africa’s larger story. Across our continent, we see economies striving to diversify, integrate, and innovate,” Vice President Prof Opoku-Agyemang said. 

“From Lagos to Kigali, from Nairobi to Accra, Africa’s greatest export is no longer raw material — it is resilience. We do not seek sympathy; we seek symmetry — in trade, in technology, and in trust.” 

She said partnerships must now evolve from the rhetoric of assistance to the reality of shared prosperity. 

She noted that Africa and Europe must build together as equals: investing in innovation, transferring technology, and creating what would serve both continents. 

Vice President Prof Opoku-Agyemang said the Mattei Plan of Italy and the AGORA framework of the World Bank offered one such space: to translate vision into ventures, and dialogue into delivery.  

“Ghana stands ready, not merely as a beneficiary, but as a partner, to co-create a future in which jobs are abundant, inclusive, and decent,” she stated. 

“Development is not an event; it is a relay — and the baton is employment,” adding that each generation must pass it on firmly to the next, so that no hand is left empty.  

The Vice President said the lessons of economic history showed that crises, when met with resolve and innovation, can forge institutions.

Citing that the stock market collapse of 1907 gave the United States its Federal Reserve, the Great Depression gave rise to the New Deal, to social security, and to public investment.  

She said Ghana’s own journey had similarly constructed initiatives that serve their social and economic foundation — whether the Ghana Education Trust Fund, the National Health Insurance Scheme, free maternal care, or the LEAP programme  

“They remind us that difficulties, when harnessed with vision, can become a source of renewal.” 

She said the Government’s 24-Hour Economy was a promise, adding that progress must never sleep, because opportunity must reach every community. 

“To investors and partners here today and elsewhere, I say: come to Ghana, not only to do business, but to build the future with us. Together, we can fill many of the remaining gaps,” Prof Opoku-Agyemang said. 

“Invest where productivity meets possibility. Stand with a nation where the energy of youth, the leadership of women, and the vision of Government move together, like the hands of a clock—never pausing, always advancing. Let us turn work into progress, and progress into hope.”