Professor Benedict Okey Oramah, President and Chairman of Board of Afreximbank, Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell of Grenada, Mrs. Kanayo Awani, Executive Vice President, Intra-African Trade and Export Development, and other Bank and Grenadian government officials at a tree planting ceremony in Grenada in honor of Oramah during ACTIF2025
When the African Union (AU) passed a resolution on May 25, 2012, during the Global African Diaspora Summit held in Johannesburg, South Africa, designating the Diaspora as the sixth region of Africa, the foundation for the activation of a chain of events that have resulted in what is now known as the Global Africa Agenda was laid.
Benedict Okey Oramah was then the Executive Vice President in charge of Business Development and Corporate Banking of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) and went on to become the President and Chairman of the Bank on 21 September 2015. He has, in a dramatic manner, within the last few years of his Presidency of the Bank, firmed up the concept with the rapid expansion of the activities of Afreximbank in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).
The CARICOM countries represent the largest single bloc of those who share common, long standing, historical, cultural and political ties with the African continent, and Afreximbank under Oramah has worked vigorously to engage with them at the highest levels of government, especially in the trade, investment and cultural sectors.
A major fall-out of the first Africa-Caribbean Heads of State and Government Summit in 2021, was the initiation, by Afreximbank of the first Africa-Caribbean Trade and Investment Forum (ACTIF) from September 1-3, 2022. Held in Bridgetown, Barbados, that first ACTIF, which was established to institutionalize and foster trade, investment and cultural relations between the private and public sectors of continental Africa and CARICOM, has grown into a major biennial international event.
The Fair has, since the maiden edition in Bridgetown, Barbados, in 2022, been held in Guyana in 2023, The Bahamas in 2024, and in St. Georges, Grenada from 28–29 July 2025. The Grenada event was a world classic, attracting a record number of participants, and with deals and memoranda worth over $300 million being signed, covering roads, ports, hotels, education, SMEs, and digital transformation.
The themes of the different Fairs have also been very instructive. The Barbados Fair had as its theme, “One People, One Destiny: Uniting and Reimaging Our Future,” the Guyana Fair focused on “Creating A Shared Prosperous Future,” while ACTIF 2025 in Grenada had as its theme “Resilience and Transformation – Enhancing Africa-Caribbean Economic Cooperation in an Era of Global Uncertainty.”
As at present, Afreximbank has already disbursed about US$1.5 billion to CARICOM countries since the new partnership which has seen almost all of the 15 Caribbean nations signing the Partnership Agreement with Afreximbank.
The Bank’s commitment has also risen from the initial US$1.5 billion facility to US$3billion in investment and financing to CARICOM countries to support development of critical sectors of the region’s economy, including infrastructures, manufacturing, agriculture, logistics, tourism, the creative industry, and Small and Medium scale Enterprises (SMEs).
Heads of Government that gathered in Grenada went a step further in the reintegration process by unanimously endorsing the call for a Global Africa Commission to serve as the umbrella under which the rapidly growing Global Africa Community can find shelter, as well as become a platform for the institutionalization of such programs as the Cultural Africa Nexus (CANEX), the Global Africa Sports program and the ACTIF.
If there was any doubt that the virtual big bridge linking Africa and the CARICOM countries had been solidly erected, thanks to the efforts of the Oramah-led Afreximbank, such doubts were quickly dispelled at the Intra-Africa Trade Fair (IATF) 2025 which held in Algiers, the capital of Algeria between 4-10 September 2025.
CARICOM countries were heavily represented by some of their Heads of Government, including Mia Amor Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados, Dr. Terrance Drew, Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis, Dickon Mitchell, Prime Minister of Grenada, and Ginger Moxey, Minister of Grand Bahama, The Bahamas. There were also private and public sector organizations from the Caribbean, and they all participated actively in the Global Africa Diaspora Day events, in the Trade and Investment Fair generally, and in the deal making that characterized the week long program, which generated USD 48.3 billion in total deals.
Dr. Drew, in his explosive speech at the opening presidential panel of the IATF2025 in Algiers, chaired by His Excellency Abdelmadjid Tebboune, President of Algeria, insisted that the time has come for the building of a Trans-Atlantic bridge of hope that would transform the painful slave trade legacy into a corridor for deeper Africa-Caribbean partnerships in trade, investment and development.
Speaking for Africa’s sixth Region, Dr. Drew, who made reference to the pan Africanists of old, expressed optimism that the current per centage of trade between Africa and the Caribbean, which is very low at about less than 1% or less will, henceforth, begin to increase, insisting that the Trans Atlantic Bridge of Hope that is being built with the Afreximbank facilitated partnerships will result in mutual prosperity for both regions.
Professor Oramah, who, with his colleagues at the Afreximbank, especially Mrs. Kanayo Awani, the Executive Vice President, Intra-African Trade and Export Development, has been pushing the Global Africa Agenda, also brought in a historical and philosophical dimension to the entire effort when, during the African Diaspora Day at the IATF 2025, he noted that the legendary pan Africanist, Frantz Fanon, a native of Martinique in the Caribbean, had, many years ago, joined other patriotic brothers and sisters in the same Algeria in the struggle against the ravages of colonialism.
He said this year, 2025, would have been the centenary celebration of the life of the acclaimed fore runner in the fight for the well being of Global Africans, pointing out that what was being done through the IATF, ACTIF, and the other initiatives being championed by Afreximbank and other stakeholders was to take the efforts of Fanon and his contemporaries of the 1950s “a step further by beginning to erect the super-structure of Global Africa on the foundations of Pan-Africanism.”
Whereas the efforts of the Fanon-era fighters were ideological and political, the groundbreaking efforts of the new fighters, led by Afreximbank is targeted at achieving “the economic empowerment of all Africans.” The truth, as Professor Oramah pointed out in his speech, is that “With a population of about two billion and an estimated combined GDP of approximately 4 trillion US dollars, an integrated, ring-fenced economy of the people of African descent presents an unparalleled economic opportunity for those within it. But to realise the opportunities, we must turn Global Africa into a cohesive and coherent market.”
The efforts to achieve this goal are gaining momentum. The African leaders who were in Algiers for the IATF2025, those who couldn’t come and the CARICOM leaders proceeded to Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia for the Second Africa-CARICOM Summit which held at the African Union Commission’s, Nelson Mandela Hall from September 6 – 7, 2025.
With the theme, “Transcontinental Partnership in Pursuit of Reparatory Justice for Africans and People of African Descent through Reparations,” this second Summit (the first in-person meeting, since the first was during the COVID-era and was held virtually), was aimed at deepening South-South cooperation, fostering shared prosperity and rallying to begin to present a united voice on global platforms.
So as the Trans-Atlantic trade and investment bridge is being firmed up, as the IATF is taking on a life of its own, having become an independent entity to be based in Zimbabwe, and as the ACTIF will become an even bigger platform for integration of the Continent and its sixth Region, and as the culture, sports and youths sectors are being more intimately woven together through the Creative Africa Nexus (CANEX) program, which now has a new Chief Executive Officer, efforts must be intensified to establish the Global Africa Commission, to better articulate and advance this grand vision of a flourishing Global Africa.
