Ghana Internet Governance Forum 2024 — In-Depth Report: Minutes Digest & 3-Line Summary

The 3-Line Summary

Ghana IGF 2024 met on 4-5 September at the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT (GI-KACE) in Accra under the theme 'Empowering Sustainable Development for Our Digital Future' — Youth IGF on day one, main forum on day two.
Deputy Minister Charles Acheampong opened with the government's inclusion record — 1,010 rural cell sites, a national roaming policy — while youth sessions urged embracing AI, and the forum closed with recommendations including a rejection of internet shutdowns.
Three months before December's presidential election, the forum tackled elections and shutdowns head-on and pointed its outcomes toward the global IGF in Riyadh — a model of what a national IGF is for in an election year.

Welcome — this is the Japan IGF Support Organization. This in-depth report on Ghana Internet Governance Forum 2024 draws on official outputs, session records and on-site reporting. In a hurry? The three lines above and the diagrams carry the gist.

Conference at a Glance (from official records)

Item	Detail
Official name	Ghana Internet Governance Forum 2024
Dates	4-5 September 2024 (The catalogue's '28-29 August 2024' is wrong: the official site, the ministry's post-event report and trade-press coverage all agree on 4-5 September (Youth IGF on the 4th, main forum on the 5th). Catalogue correction needed)
Venue	Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT (GI-KACE), Ridge, Accra
Theme	Empowering Sustainable Development for Our Digital Future (The ministry's article renders it '…of Our Digital Future'; the official site's wording is used here)
Host	Hosted by the Ghana IGF with the Ghana Domain Name Registry (GDNR), ISOC Ghana and the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation; opened by Deputy Minister Charles Acheampong on behalf of Minister Ursula Owusu-Ekuful

(See the source list at the end of this article.)

Discussion Digest — from the Session Records

Key exchanges extracted from session records and transcripts.

1. Youth and AI — 'Now It's Your Turn to Build on the Internet'

Sessions: Ghana Youth IGF, 4 September 2024

"Somebody has built ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Anthropic on top of the internet, waiting for you to build something on top of it. The future is now, you need to get going, take action, and make sure you use the technology that's in front of you to the fullest"
— Nana Kofi Asafu-Aidoo, Co-chair of the Ghana IGF [2]

"AI is transforming our minds, the way we think, and so if you refuse to be transformed, you will be left behind"
— Rev. Dr. Nanayaa Tina Owusu Prempeh, Ghana Domain Name Registry [2]

Meeting a day ahead of the main forum on 'Meaningful Connectivity for Responsible AI Use and Online Safety', the Youth IGF had young people debate both the opportunity and the responsibility of AI [2]
Rev. Dr. Owusu Prempeh underlined the equalising power of connectivity: emerging technologies let someone in Hong Kong teach someone in Ghana, and give rural learners the same education as urban ones [2]

2. The Government's Inclusion Record — 1,010 Cell Sites and National Roaming

Sessions: Opening ceremony, 5 September 2024, GI-KACE

"The Ghana IGF has evolved into a pivotal platform for our digital transformation, providing a unique space for multistakeholder dialogue. It allows government, industry, and civil society to come together to shape policies and propose solutions to accelerate Ghana's digital future"
— Hon. Charles Acheampong (MP), Deputy Minister for Communications and Digitalisation [1]

Opening for the minister, the deputy minister reported that the Rural Telephony and Digital Inclusion Project had built over 1,010 cell sites, bringing services to millions previously excluded, and cited the National Roaming Policy as a divide-closing measure [1]
Calling trust 'the foundation of a healthy digital ecosystem', he named privacy, combating misinformation and accountability as priorities, pointing to the Cyber Security Authority's comprehensive framework [1]
Prof. Ezer Osei Yeboah-Boateng of the National Communications Authority, speaking for the Director-General, highlighted technology in education and the 5G rollout underpinning affordable high-speed data [1]

3. Disinformation in an Election Year — Recommendations Reject Internet Shutdowns

Sessions: Panels and recommendations, three months before December's presidential and parliamentary elections

The agenda explicitly listed 'internet shutdowns in the context of political elections' alongside global digital equity and disinformation, with cooperation with the Electoral Commission and other institutions debated as a counter-misinformation measure [2][3]
The closing recommendations called for innovative user safeguards, regulation that keeps pace with technology, digital literacy in school curricula — and stated plainly that cutting off the internet will not stop misinformation but may exacerbate the problem [2][3]
Responsible AI use, cybersecurity and disability inclusion in tech ran through the panels and into the recommendations for expanding digital opportunity in Ghana [2][3]

4. Connecting to Riyadh — a National IGF That Now Trains Judges

Sessions: Opening ceremony and associated programmes

The deputy minister looked ahead to the global IGF in Riyadh at year's end, expecting Ghana IGF 2024's insights to feed the worldwide conversation on a multistakeholder digital future [1][2][3]
ISOC Ghana president Francis Acquah Amaning presented the judiciary training programme 'Justice in a Connected World: Navigating the Digital Landscape in Ghana', equipping judges for complex internet-related legal questions — the national IGF's reach now extending to the bench [1][2][3]
Three weeks later, on 26 September, the Ghana Internet Governance School followed, completing a year-round capacity-building cycle [1][2][3]

Three-Minute Short Talk — Your Questions Answered

Q. What kind of meeting was this?

A. Ghana's national IGF for 2024: Youth IGF on 4 September, main forum on the 5th, at the Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in Accra, gathering government, business, civil society and academia around AI, disinformation and digital inclusion.

Q. What was the biggest issue?

A. Elections. Three months before the presidential vote, the forum debated election-time internet shutdowns and wrote into its recommendations that cutting off the internet will not stop misinformation but may make it worse — a clear multistakeholder answer to a recurring African problem.

Q. Why should I care?

A. An election-year national IGF choosing literacy and institutional cooperation over new speech laws — and telling its youth to build on top of AI rather than fear it — is a template worth studying anywhere elections and disinformation collide.

What Is Ghana IGF? (for first-time readers)

Ghana IGF is a National or Regional IGF Initiative (NRI), aligning local internet governance discussion with global IGF principles.

Why It Matters to You

What was discussed here becomes the baseline for national digital policy, platform rules and AI regulation worldwide within a few years. The principles confirmed at the 2024 meeting are the foundation of the "next rules" for the phones, social platforms and AI services you use every day.