African Union Commissioner for Economic Development, Trade, Tourism, Industry and Minerals, Francisca Tatchououp Belobe, has held up Ghana's Gold Board as a blueprint for mineral sector reforms that other African countries could replicate to shore up foreign exchange reserves and stabilise their currencies.
Speaking at the Mining in Motion Conference on Monday, October 19, Belobe said GoldBod shows how reforms in the mineral sector can be tied directly to national development goals, particularly around foreign exchange management and reserve building.
"The establishment of the Ghana Gold Board illustrates how mineral sectors reform can serve as broader national development objectives by improving foreign exchange, strengthening international reserves and supporting currency stability as well as macroeconomic resilience." - Francisca Tatchououp Belobe
She added that Ghana's push on local content, domestic enterprise support and mineral value addition carries lessons worth exporting across the continent.
Belobe commended President John Dramani Mahama for the approach and said the African Union is keen to share Ghana's experience with other member states looking to retain more value from their own mineral wealth rather than exporting raw resources at a discount.
The Numbers Behind the Praise
The timing of her remarks lines up with GoldBod's own performance. The board generated US$1.871 billion in foreign exchange from its artisanal and small-scale mining gold trading operations in September 2026, comfortably beating its monthly target of US$1.4 billion.
In an announcement issued Wednesday, September 30, GoldBod said the funds were channelled to authorised commercial banks and the Bank of Ghana, supporting both foreign exchange market stability and the country's reserve accumulation efforts.
Taken together, the AU's endorsement and GoldBod's own figures suggest Ghana's gold trading reforms are being watched closely beyond its borders, with other resource-rich African nations potentially looking to adapt elements of the model to their own mineral sectors.
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