Ghana

Ghana enters 2026 as one of Africa's most credible turnaround stories. After the 2022 default, a $3bn IMF Extended Credit Facility has anchored a sharp stabilisation: the Fund completed its Fifth Review in December 2025 with all targets met, real GDP grew roughly 6% in 2025, debt-to-GDP fell from an ~88% peak to about 53%, and headline inflation collapsed to a record-low 3.2% by March 2026.

That recovery is golden — literally. Gold export earnings roughly doubled to about $20bn in 2025, lifting total exports to a record $31.1bn and reserves to a record $13.8bn. The newly created Ghana Gold Board, which formalises small-scale gold trading, exported a record ~100 tonnes in its first year. Sovereign credit has re-rated accordingly, with upgrades from S&P, Fitch and Moody's.

The distinctiveness is a commodity-financed stabilisation with genuine institutional reform underneath it. The dominant risk is concentration and durability: the rally leans on a high gold-price cycle, oil output has fallen for five straight years, cocoa is in structural decline, and Ghana's history is one of fiscal slippage after IMF exits and around elections.