The Head of the Pan African Progressive Front (PPF), Mr Humphrey Quaye, has called for the cancellation of Africa's "odious debt" and the payment of reparations to the continent for centuries of exploitation.
He made the call in his opening address at an International Youth Forum on Debt and Reparations held at the ISSER Conference Hall, University of Ghana, Legon, on Saturday, September 5, 2026.
The forum, held under the theme "Youth of Africa; Africa's Freedom is in Our Hands!!!", brought together about 200 participants including Ghanaian youth and students from Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and other foreign students resident in Ghana.
Mr Quaye said Africa's debt crisis cannot be viewed in isolation from the historical effects of slavery, colonialism, neocolonialism and imperialism.
"The so-called debt crisis of Africa is not an accident, neither is it an African creation," he said. "For 400 years they took our know-how without due credit and our labour for free. For 100 years they took our lands, minerals and other resources for free. Now, they lend us our own stolen wealth at interest, and call us debtors."
He argued that discussions about Africa's debt must be accompanied by resetting, repair and restitution, stressing that reparative justice is central to the PPF's mission.
Touching on the progress of the PPF, Mr Quaye said the organisation, which established its international headquarters in Accra on June 30, 2025, has grown from an idea into an institutionalised Pan-African movement.
He recalled that the PPF convened an International Conference of Progressive Pan-African Forces at the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park on November 18 and 19, 2025, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Fifth Pan-African Congress. The conference, attended by more than 200 delegates from 57 countries and opened by President John Dramani Mahama, the African Union Champion for Reparations, produced the Accra Declaration and a Special Accra Declaration on Reparations.
According to him, the PPF has proposed the establishment of a Joint Institute for the Assessment of Damage and Documentation of the Colonial Legacy to provide scientific and legal evidence for reparations claims, as well as a Pan-African Reparations Justice Fund to manage reparatory resources. He also called for the return of African cultural artefacts held in museums outside the continent.
Mr Quaye charged the youth to formulate a Youth Chapter of the Accra Declaration focusing on climate justice and technology sovereignty, to organise across campuses and digital platforms, and to campaign for national and regional reparations bodies.
"We are here to collect and collect we shall!" he declared.
Also addressing the forum, Cuba's Ambassador-Designate to Ghana, H.E. Julio Enrique Pujol Torres, urged African nations to translate political independence into economic sovereignty.
"It means having the right to decide what we produce, what we teach our children, how we use our natural resources, who benefits from our labour," he said.
Ambassador Pujol Torres criticised international economic policies and sanctions that perpetuate poverty and indebtedness, highlighting their human cost on health, education and research.
He reaffirmed Cuba's solidarity with Africa, recalling the deployment of Cuban doctors, teachers and engineers during liberation struggles and humanitarian crises including the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
He told young Africans that political independence must result in economic and technological sovereignty that retains wealth and talent on the continent.
"Africa's freedom is in your hands," he said.
