Creatives, policymakers, and industry leaders from across Africa are set to converge in Accra for Creatives Connect Afrika 2025, a landmark event aimed at operationalising the AfCFTA Protocol on Trade in Services in the creative and cultural sectors. The inaugural festival runs from 24–26 November 2025 at La Palm Royal Beach Hotel, Ghana.
Creatives Connect Afrika is being organised by the AfCFTA Secretariat, in partnership with the Government of Ghana and Africa Tourism Partners (ATP). According to the AfCFTA Secretariat this Forum & Festival will convene key figures from film, music, fashion, and tourism to engage in masterclasses, policy dialogues, and B2B matchmaking.
At the heart of the event is a bold vision: transforming Africa’s creative industries into structured pillars of intra-continental trade. As noted in a report by the Ghanaian Times, the forum’s ambition aligns with the AfCFTA’s pursuit of concrete regulatory alignment—particularly in digital trade, intellectual property, and services mobility.
This ambition is echoed by the graphic commentary in Graphic Online, which describes Creatives Connect Afrika as “the intervention point” for unlocking intra-African mobility for creators, distribution frameworks, and structured financing.
Key players expected at the gathering include H.E. John Dramani Mahama, guest of honour, and Wamkele Mene, Secretary-General of the AfCFTA Secretariat. Their presence underscores the strategic importance of the creative economy as a driver of continental integration and economic recovery.
During the launch, Emily Mburu-Ndoria, Director of Trade in Services at the AfCFTA Secretariat, argued that the AfCFTA Agreement must evolve beyond trade in goods to include the creative economy. She emphasised the need for policy instruments that can support cross-border licensing, copyright protection, and creative mobility.
Africa Tourism Partners (ATP) will facilitate the business dimension of the gathering, structuring investor and creative matchmaking sessions to ensure that the partnerships formed yield tangible deals. As reported by BusinessDay, ATP expects fashion designers, filmmakers, musicians, and tourism professionals to engage in deal rooms guided by structured B2B frameworks.
On the ground, creatives can look forward to capacity-building opportunities. The three-day festival includes masterclasses, “deal-making lounges,” and a runway show for African fashion designers. These interconnected activities aim to combine art with trade, thus creating sustainable value chains for creative entrepreneurs.
In many respects, Creatives Connect Afrika represents a paradigm shift: not just a cultural festival, but a continental market space, where policy meets creativity, and imagination becomes commerce. It is precisely this fusion that the AfCFTA Secretariat hopes will unlock Africa’s $50-billion creative market.
As the first continental trade-in-culture platform anchored by AfCFTA, the event may very well serve as a blueprint for future collaborations, deal-making, and capacity building—turning creativity into a core pillar of Africa’s economic integration.
