Graça Machel Trust’s Expert Leaders Group communique 1

The Expert Leaders Group (ELG) convened virtually on 30 June 2026 as part of its continuing programme of dialogue under its 2026 theme, Women Shaping Africa’s Economic Reset, to examine emerging policy priorities and identify areas where collective leadership can contribute to shaping more inclusive and resilient economic systems across the continent.

A Continent in Reset

Africa’s economic landscape continues to evolve amid heightened geopolitical uncertainty, tighter fiscal conditions, accelerating digital transformation, and increasing pressure to mobilise domestic resources.

These shifts present an opportunity to strengthen financial systems, expand economic participation, and build greater resilience across the continent. They also reinforce the importance of ensuring that women are not only beneficiaries of reform, but active contributors to the design of the institutions, policies, and financial architecture that will shape Africa’s economic future.

Against this backdrop, the Expert Leaders Group (ELG) convened to examine emerging policy priorities and identify areas where collective leadership can contribute to strengthening women’s economic participation and influence.

Key Reflections

Financial Systems Reform

Financial systems that respond to the realities of women entrepreneurs, professionals, and leaders remain central to Africa’s economic transformation.

Members recognised that expanding women’s financial power requires coordinated financial system reform. Priority areas identified included regulation, consumer protection, financial capability, access to information, innovative approaches to credit assessment, and financing models capable of reaching underserved women and women-led enterprises. The discussions also highlighted the importance of accountability and evidence-based approaches in advancing financial systems reform across the continent.

Open Finance

Members examined emerging regulatory approaches to Open Finance through the inaugural ELG In Focus session, recognising its potential to expand competition, improve financial inclusion, and stimulate innovation across African financial systems.

The discussions underscored that the successful implementation of Open Finance will depend not only on technological innovation, but also on robust governance frameworks that protect consumers, strengthen digital trust, safeguard data, and ensure that the benefits of innovation are broadly shared.

Women’s Leadership in Economic Governance

Members reaffirmed that strengthening women’s leadership within central banks, ministries of finance, financial regulators, and public economic institutions remain fundamental to building stronger and more inclusive economies.

The Group also recognised the importance of documenting and amplifying the contributions of African women whose leadership has shaped finance and economic governance, strengthening institutional memory while creating visible pathways for future generations of leaders.

Consensus

Members affirmed that financial inclusion, women’s economic leadership, and financial systems reform are mutually reinforcing and should increasingly be pursued as interconnected rather than separate agendas.

The Group recognised that lasting economic transformation would require women not only to participate in Africa’s economies, but also to influence the institutions, policies, and financial systems that shape its economic future.

Priorities for Engagement

The ELG will pursue four interconnected priorities over the coming period:

• strengthening women’s financial power through policy and systems reform;
• advancing evidence-based advocacy that supports practical reforms across African financial systems;
• increasing the visibility of African women leaders in finance and economic governance; and
• deepening collaboration across the Graça Machel Trust ecosystem and with continental institutions and strategic partners.

Together, these priorities give practical expression to the ELG’s 2026 agenda, Women Shaping Africa’s Economic Reset.

About the Expert Leaders Group

The Expert Leaders Group (ELG) of the Graça Machel Trust brings together serving and former central bank governors, deputy governors, finance ministers, and financial regulators from across Africa.

It is a continental platform for advancing women’s leadership in economic governance and strengthening the role of financial systems in supporting inclusive and sustainable development.

Through strategic dialogue, partnerships, and policy engagement, the Group works to move women from participation to influence – and from influence to institutional change – across Africa’s economic governance architecture.