President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo announced the launch at the Global Citizen Festival in Accra last Saturday night.

The fund will focus on projects, including infrastructural development, financial access for the participation of women and the youth, education, health care, technology and sustainability, for the benefit of Africa’s 1.3billion people.

The festival

Organised by the international advocacy organization, Global Citizen, the festival, which took the form of a concert, sought to leverage opportunities to get policy and financial commitments from the governments, corporate and philanthropic leaders.

It took place at the Black Star Square in Accra and on the Great Lawn in the Central Park in New York City, USA.

The Accra event was not a normal event – it was filled with jeers, cheers, thrills, excitement and other acts that echoed across the Black Star Square in the afternoon of a scorching day that went on into a breezy night.

Thousands of people gathered at the square to dance, applaud and sing along to songs by some of their favourite artistes, including Stonebwoy, Sarkodie, Usher, Stormzy, SZA, Tems, Gyakie, Tiwa Savage and Angélique Kidjo.

Ahead of the festival, Global Citizen called on world leaders who had gathered at the United Nations General Assembly, as well as major corporations and philanthropic foundations, to take to Global Citizen Festival stages and announce new commitments to end extreme poverty now.

The commitments sought for include investing $600 million in the future of women and girls, closing the annual $10-billion climate financing shortfall, delivering $500 million to help African farmers respond to the global food crisis and reallocating International Monetary Fund (IMF) Special Drawing Rights to provide urgent economic support, while explicitly acknowledging that sustainable change is only possible with the people and activists who advocate change on the ground and who should never have to risk their lives because of doing so.