- At the 9th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD IX), former President John Dramani Mahama urged African governments to stop stifling innovation through excessive regulation.
- He called for a reorientation of public sector attitudes, emphasizing that businesses must be treated as development partners.
- Mahama criticized the lack of enabling environments for private sector growth and warned that profitability must be guaranteed for businesses to contribute meaningfully to national development.
Former President John Dramani Mahama is calling for a major rethink in how African governments engage with the private sector. Speaking at the 9th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD IX), Mahama warned that excessive regulation and outdated attitudes are choking innovation and undermining the continent’s economic potential.
He urged leaders to stop treating businesses as adversaries and instead embrace them as partners in development. According to Mahama, many governments continue to pay lip service to the idea that the private sector is the “engine of growth,” while failing to provide the fuel — policies, incentives, and infrastructure — needed to make that engine run.
He stressed that businesses can’t be expected to shoulder the burden of development unless they’re operating in environments where profitability is possible. Without that, he argued, creativity and investment will simply go elsewhere.
Mahama’s remarks come at a time when many African economies are grappling with sluggish growth, youth unemployment, and rising debt. His message was clear: if governments want to unlock the continent’s full potential, they must stop crowding out entrepreneurs and start creating space for them to thrive.
The dialogue at TICAD IX continues, but Mahama’s intervention has already sparked renewed interest in how policy can better support Africa’s business ecosystem — not just in theory, but in practice.
