Can Africa’s Central Bankers Turn AfCFTA into a Currency Revolution?

Positive Money’s advocacy for central bank digital currencies has sharpened a debate that London and Brussels are still circling: should public money be rebuilt for the digital age? The answer matters everywhere, but it matters most in Africa. Here, the African Continental Free Trade Area has created the world’s largest single market by member states. Yet its arteries — cross-border payments — remain clogged by correspondent banks, FX spreads, and the rent-seeking of tight-fisted retail banks. The result is a cruel paradox: free trade in principle, expensive trade in practice.

Central bankers across Africa: over to you, Joe Lartey. As our late GBC sports commentator would say, the ball is in your court. Ghana has the mandate and the moment.

Public infrastructure, not private tollgates
A CBDC is not simply “digital cash”. It is central bank money issued as a bearer instrument on a digital rail. That distinction is decisive. Today, cross-border payments settle in commercial bank money, moving through multiple intermediaries. Each intermediary extracts a fee. For the SME trader moving shea butter from Kumasi to Abidjan, those fees erode margin and competitiveness.

A multilateral CBDC bridge — an mCBDC model linking sovereign currencies — removes those layers. Settlement moves from days to seconds. FX conversion losses shrink. The benefit accrues to the trader, the farmer, the informal sector entrepreneur. Public money, serving public purpose.

This is the insight driving the common-good case for CBDCs: money creation and payment rails are public goods. They should not be surrendered to oligopoly by default.

Ghana already proves interoperability works
Africa need not import theory. Ghana already operates one of the continent’s most advanced interoperable mobile money ecosystems, regulated by the Bank of Ghana. MTN, Telecel, AirtelTigo and bank wallets settle instantly across networks. The technical logic and regulatory discipline are proven.

An mCBDC extends that logic across currencies, not just networks. If Ghana’s eCedi can speak seamlessly to Nigeria’s eNaira and Kenya’s CBDC when it launches, AfCFTA stops being a customs agreement and becomes a payments union. That is how you lower the transaction cost of integration itself.

Monetary sovereignty without fragmentation
Critics fear CBDCs will lead to dollarisation or surveillance. The opposite is true if interoperability is designed first. Coordinated standards allow each central bank to retain monetary sovereignty while enabling cross-border utility. Retail banks remain as regulated wallet providers and distributors. They lose their tollgate status, not their role.

Moreover, an interoperable CBDC system extends access to the unbanked via tiered wallets and agent networks. No dollarisation by default. No surrender of policy space. Instead, monetary sovereignty expressed through collaboration, not isolation.

The Accra advantage
Ghana’s advantage is not just technical. The AfCFTA Secretariat is headquartered in Accra. The policy scaffolding and the proof-of-concept are both on Ghanaian soil. While the UK and EU debate CBDC design principles, Africa can lead by building interoperability first.

This is not a call for a single “Afro-CBDC”. Uniformity would kill the innovation that makes monetary policy responsive to local conditions. It is a call for coordinated standards, shared technical rails, and governance that prioritises the common good over private extraction.

The play is now
Joe Lartey’s voice on GBC was known for precision under pressure. He would describe the game, then hand responsibility back to the players. The game here is AfCFTA. The players are Africa’s central bank governors.

The ball is in your court. Build the rails. Set the standards. Anchor trade in public money. If Africa gets this right, we do not just trade more. We trade differently — on terms we set, through infrastructure we own, for prosperity we share.

The moment is now. Ghana has the ecosystem. Accra has the Secretariat. African central bank bosses, “Over to you, Joe Lartey!”