Africa can no longer put off the question of who owns, pays for and decides its development, the Executive Director of STAR-Ghana Foundation, Ibrahim Tanko-Amidu, told African philanthropy leaders at the opening of the 2026 African Philanthropy Network (APN) Biennial Assembly in Accra.

Speaking as Board Chairman of the APN, Alhaji Ibrahim-Tanko said the retreat of multilateralism made these questions urgent. He urged the continent’s foundations, civil society organisations, communities, governments and businesses to answer them together.

“Who owns our development? Who pays for it? Who decides? How do we work across borders and organisations for effectiveness and sustainability?” he asked.

Independence as African philanthropy

Alhaji Ibrahim-Tanko used Ghana’s history to make his case. As the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence, he said, Ghana did not treat its freedom as something to keep for itself. Citing Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s declaration that Ghana’s independence was meaningless unless linked to the total liberation of Africa, he said: “Ghana did not treat its freedom as a prize to keep. It treated it as a debt to pay, to pay forward.”

He also challenged the idea that outsiders paid for that freedom. It was financed, he said, by ordinary market women, farmers, workers and citizens across the continent who gave what little they had to a cause larger than themselves. “Africa’s independence was African philanthropy in its purest sense,” he said, pointing to food, resources, mutual aid and solidarity across borders.

Shifting power, not just seats

The Assembly is being held under the theme “African Philanthropy in Action: Adopt, Advance, Amplify.” Alhaji Ibrahim-Tanko urged participants to approach the discussions with courage, and to question their approaches, relationships, assumptions and ambitions for the continent.

He linked this to the global Shift the Power movement and to social justice philanthropy. For more than a decade, he said, the movement has asked for what the APN has long championed: “not a seat at somebody’s table, but the right to set the table ourselves,” or to co-design it.

No single actor can do it alone

Just as no single nation could free the continent alone, he said, no single foundation, organisation, expert or funder can transform Africa alone. Civil society, communities, government and business must work together, guided by equality, inclusiveness and integrity.

“I hope that at the end of this Assembly, we will leave Accra with commitments, not just conversations,” he said, before declaring the Assembly open on behalf of the APN Board and Secretariat.

Rooted in STAR-Ghana Foundation’s work

The call reflects the approach STAR-Ghana Foundation takes in its own work. The Foundation supports civil society and citizen-led initiatives that amplify people’s voices, strengthen their influence in decision-making and advance inclusive development in Ghana. It works through partnerships with local organisations, communities, government and development partners, and it backs locally led solutions on the principle that those closest to the challenges should help shape the answers.

Through programmes such as the Action for Voice, Influence and Inclusive Development (AVID) Project and its youth and volunteerism initiatives, the Foundation is putting into practice the ownership, partnership and shared-responsibility principles Alhaji Ibrahim-Tanko set out in Accra.

Also speaking at the opening, the APN’s Executive Director, Dr Stigmata Tenga, described the Assembly as a product of co-creation and stressed that Africa’s challenges are interconnected. Keynote speaker Erelu Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi, CEO of Above Whispers Media Group, urged African philanthropy to move beyond conventional charity to mobilise local wealth and back home-grown solutions.