Anglican Church leader visits slave trade project on Africa tour

The head of the Church of England Sarah Mullally has visited an Anglican-led project in Ghana on the transatlantic slave trade and met the country's president as part of an African tour.

Mullally, the archbishop of Canterbury, met Ghanaian President John Mahama on Monday on her first trip to Africa as leader of the world's Anglican Christians in a visit that will include stops in Cameroon.

"It was a privilege to be in Ghana, here in Accra, to be able to break the ground" on a cultural heritage site "that will tell the story of the transatlantic slave trade", Mullally said.

The project is the Church of Ghana's Heritage Anglican Culture Village and Resorts, which aims to develop a pilgrimage site and cultural programming for members from the African diaspora and those descended from slaves.

Mullally's predecessor Justin Welby apologised for the Church of England's historic links to slavery, calling it a "source of shame".

Ghana has been at the forefront of connecting people in the diaspora to Africa, granting Ghanaian citizenship to more than 1,000 people in recent years.

More recently, the west African nation has advocated for reparations for slavery and successfully pushed the United Nations to recognise the transatlantic slave trade as "the gravest crime against humanity".

Greeting Mullally in Accra, Mahama called her confirmation as the first woman to lead the Church of England "historic", in comments released late on Monday.

On Sunday, Mullally had preached at a three-hour service at St Joseph the Worker Anglican Church, led entirely by women clergy.