Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa announced the decision in Accra on 6 October with India’s Subrahmanyam Jaishankar beside him: a formal application, Indian help with the process, and a promise that the old partnerships stay.
Ghana will formally apply to join BRICS. Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa disclosed the cabinet decision on 6 October at a joint press briefing in Accra with India’s External Affairs Minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, who was opening a five-day African tour with a two-day official visit. “The Cabinet of President John Dramani Mahama has decided that Ghana should put in a formal application to join BRICS,” Ablakwa said. The stated aims are to diversify the country’s international partnerships, widen its economic opportunities and support the government’s agenda of jobs and industrialisation.
The choice of stage was deliberate. Accra has already asked New Delhi to help it through the accession process, and Ablakwa described India’s place in the bloc as central to the bid. Jaishankar said India had consistently supported Ghana’s development aspirations, while noting that membership is a matter for the wider grouping; admission needs the consensus of the existing members. No application date or membership category has been announced. What was signed on the day was bilateral: two memoranda, including one on agricultural research and training, under the Comprehensive Partnership agreed during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit last year. India listed pharmaceuticals, healthcare, mining, defence, railways and digital technology as the areas it wants to expand.
Why it matters
Ablakwa was careful about what this is not. BRICS, he said, complements Ghana’s traditional development partners rather than replacing them; the word he kept returning to was options. That reads as confidence more than protest. In August this Brief reported a government that was invited back to the Eurobond market and declined, with debt at 45% of GDP and distress risk cut from high to moderate. A country that can tell bond investors “we are not in a hurry” is in a position to choose its clubs rather than be chosen by its creditors — and to treat membership as a way to add markets and financing channels for an economy built on gold and cocoa.
The timing helps. On the same day the World Bank raised its 2026 growth forecast for sub-Saharan Africa to 4.3%, with upgrades for nearly three-quarters of the region’s economies. Jaishankar drew a line between Ghana’s own programmes — the Accra Reset, Feed Ghana, One Million Coders — and schemes India has run at home, which is where the practical content of this relationship sits: pharmaceuticals, rail and digital technology. Whether BRICS says yes is a decision for the bloc. The bilateral agenda does not have to wait for it.
Sources: Ghana Business News · GhanaWeb · Modern Ghana · West Africa Weekly · Business Today · World Bank · Reuters