Africa Prosperity Network Launches APD 2027, Registration Opens September 7

The Africa Prosperity Network (APN) has launched the Africa Prosperity Dialogues (APD) 2027, confirming that registration for the fifth edition of its flagship high-level integration forum will open on Monday, September 7, 2026.

The launch took place at a media briefing held on Wednesday, September 2, at the APN Secretariat in Accra.

APD 2027 will be held from January 27 to 29, 2027, at the Kempinski Hotel Gold Coast City in Accra, under the theme “The Borderless Africa We Want: Move Freely. Pay Seamlessly. Trade More.”

The briefing was addressed by APN leadership alongside two of its strategic partners – Amine Idriss Adoum, Director of Infrastructure, Industrialisation, Trade and Regional Integration at AUDA-NEPAD, and Ziad Hamoui, Co-Founder of Borderless Alliance.

According to APN, the change of venue from the Accra International Conference Centre, which hosted the previous edition, to Kempinski Hotel Gold Coast City is due to ongoing refurbishment works at the conference centre. APD 2026 attracted about 6,400 delegates from 94 countries over three days. For 2027, the Kempinski venue can only accommodate around 1,000 participants.

Speaking at the briefing, Founder and Executive Chairman of APN, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, said APD 2027 is built on actionable outcomes already underway.

He highlighted APN’s track record of translating conference commitments into continental policy, pointing to the immediate impact of APD 2024. He said following APD 2024, where digital economy and seamless payment systems featured prominently, the AfCFTA Secretariat, working with Smart Africa, GSMA Africa and other stakeholders, passed the AfCFTA Digital Trade Protocol within weeks.

APN subsequently convened a symposium in July 2024 at Labadi Beach Hotel, bringing together regional central banks, payment operators and telecom firms including Safaricom, Vodacom, Axian Telecom, Telecel and MTN to chart a pathway toward continent-wide mobile money interoperability.

“We brought all the stakeholders together, the central banks of the continent, the NCAs, the payment operators, and they came up with a report on achieving the ability to buy and sell across the continent using just your mobile money,” Otchere-Darko said.

He said that report was presented to the African Union’s Mid-Year Coordination Summit on July 21, 2024, in Accra, where it was unanimously endorsed by all Regional Economic Communities, with a commitment to have a continent-wide mobile money interoperability framework operational by 2027.

“We need the media to help push that. The advocacy must be strong,” he urged, stressing that Africa’s young entrepreneurs and SMEs remain constrained by colonial-era borders despite policy commitments.

“We can’t have a situation where our leaders meet, agree on policies that are good for our continent, good for our economies, good for creating jobs, but are limited by the borders that were created for us by those who colonised us.”

He said APD 2027’s theme directly mirrors continental priorities of enabling Africans to move freely, transact seamlessly through interoperable digital payments, and trade more profitably.

Speaking at the briefing, Ziad Hamoui said the dialogue’s theme reflects 15 years of advocacy with traders, transport operators and border agencies.

“An agreement does not move a truck. A protocol does not move a person. And a market is not truly open if businesses cannot transact across the borders,” he said.

He noted that while Africa has built an impressive integration architecture – including the Abuja Treaty, AfCFTA Agreement and ECOWAS free movement protocols – intra-African trade remains at only 15 to 16 percent, and African citizens still require visas for around 45 percent of destinations on their own continent.

“We are not seeking another declaration. We are seeking implementation,” Hamoui stressed, confirming that Borderless Alliance is partnering with APN on the Make Africa Borderless Now! movement and the Borderless Africa Agenda 2030, which aims to mobilise signatures to be presented to the AU Heads of State Assembly in February 2027.

Amine Idriss Adoum of AUDA-NEPAD said APD 2027’s theme sits closely alongside the African Union’s own theme for the year, which centres on regional integration and the Single African Air Transport Market. He pointed out that African carriers collectively control less than a fifth of the continent’s air transport market.

APD 2027 will be built around four thematic pillars – Move Freely (aviation, mobility and smart borders), Pay Seamlessly (payments, fintech and digital commerce), Connect Africa (digital infrastructure, telecoms and AI), and Trade More (logistics, trade finance and regional value chains) – and will formally launch the Borderless Africa Agenda 2030, anchored on two flagship reforms: a Visa-Free Africa and connected digital payments systems.

The three-day programme will combine a Business and Policy Leaders’ Dialogue on Days 1 and 2, producing an Outcome Document, with a Presidential and Business Leaders’ Summit on Day 3, at which Heads of State and business leaders are expected to adopt an APD 2027 Action Compact for onward presentation to the African Union Heads of State Summit in Addis Ababa in February 2027.