Prof. Benedict Oramah, outgoing President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Afreximbank, delivered a powerful call to action at the Future Africa Forum 2025, held at The Africa Center in New York. Speaking under the theme “From Heritage to Prosperity: Leveraging Cultural Roots to Promote Global Africa”, Professor Oramah urged Africa and its diaspora to harness their shared heritage as the foundation for collective economic power and cultural renewal.
The forum brought together influential figures from across Africa and the diaspora, including His Excellency Denis Sassou Nguesso, President of the Republic of Congo, and Ms. Jendayi Frazer, Board Chairperson of The Africa Center, alongside government officials, investors, entrepreneurs, and cultural leaders. It was a fitting audience for Outgoing President Prof. Oramah’s message: that the bonds of ancestry and identity stretching across continents must now be turned into a common platform for economic power and cultural renewal.
Professor Oramah opened by reminding the audience that Africa is not merely a continent but a global civilisation of nearly two billion people of African descent, bound by shared ancestry, identity, and destiny. While history had scattered Africans across continents, he said, the future must now be built on reconnecting through trade, investment, and cultural exchange. In his words, the African in Accra and the African in Atlanta are bound by a common heritage and a collective destiny.
President Oramah emphasised the economic and cultural weight of the African Diaspora, noting that remittances alone exceed US$100 billion annually. Yet, the Diaspora’s true potential lies in its skills, networks, and markets. The Diaspora is not a distant relative, but “Africa amplified”. President Oramah argued its energy must be fully integrated into Africa’s economic and cultural future.
He went on to outline Afreximbank’s leadership in institutionalising the concept of “Global Africa,” a strategy the Bank has pursued since 2018 through its Diaspora Strategy. This approach has redefined intra-African trade to include all people of African descent worldwide, with efforts channelled into mobilising investment, leveraging remittance-backed financing, promoting skills and knowledge transfer, supporting cultural industries, and advancing cross-border integration.
Among the initiatives demonstrating this vision, Professor Oramah highlighted the Global Africa Gateway in New York, launched in September 2024, which serves both as a symbolic and practical bridge between Africa and its Diaspora. Through the Diaspora Internship Programme linked to the Gateway, young African Americans have already joined leading African multinationals, helping to strengthen cross-cultural and economic ties. He also spoke of the AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum (ACTIF), which since 2022 has convened leaders, policymakers, and investors across the Caribbean. The 2025 edition alone drew more than 2,100 delegates from 80 countries, including 11 Heads of State, and generated over US$300 million in trade and investment deals.
President Oramah stressed that Afreximbank’s commitment to the Caribbean is both broad and tangible. Thirteen CARICOM states are now members of the Bank, and eleven have ratified its Partnership Agreement, granting Afreximbank a full legal mandate across the region. He pointed to the establishment of a regional office in Barbados, where a US$180 million Africa Trade Centre is already under construction, and to the US$3 billion in financing commitments the Bank has made, with more than one billion already disbursed to projects across climate adaptation, tourism, sports, energy, SMEs, and infrastructure. He noted ongoing collaboration with CARICOM to create a Caribbean Eximbank dedicated to financing industrialisation and innovation, and a partnership with the Caribbean Development Fund that is mobilising 250 million dollars for climate adaptation and resilience through the Growth, Resilience, and Sustainability Fund.
Looking to the future, Professor Oramah argued these efforts should form part of a broader architecture, connected through a new institution: a Global Africa Commission. He described the proposed Commission as a coalition of the African Union, CARICOM, Latin America, and the wider Diaspora, designed to coordinate the energies of more than two billion people of African descent. Its mandate would be to harmonise trade, investment, cultural, and human development policies while strengthening Africa’s collective voice and influence on the global stage.
Delivering what he confirmed would be his final Future Africa Forum address as President of Afreximbank, President Oramah reflected on the progress made during his tenure and the legacy he hoped to leave behind. “If I leave a legacy, let it be this: Africa and its Diaspora are indivisible, united by heritage, empowered by commerce and investment, and destined for greatness. The bridges we have built must lead to highways of trade, investment, culture, and prosperity, ensuring the world cannot move forward without Africa.”
