The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today kicked off the Africa Virtual Asset Summit (AVAS) 2026, a two‑day event scheduled for 2 and 3 November at the Kempinski Hotel Gold Coast City in Accra. The summit, themed “Tokenisation: Africa’s Pathway Towards Building a Trusted, Inclusive and Innovative Virtual Asset Ecosystem,” seeks to produce actionable outcomes for the continent’s growing digital‑asset market.
At the launch, Director‑General Dr James Klutse Avedzi highlighted the need for clear, consistent rules. “Africa’s participation in virtual assets is already significant,” he said. “That growth must be matched by frameworks that promote innovation, protect investors and maintain confidence in the market.” The event will culminate in the proposed Accra Declaration, a set of shared principles and recommendations for responsible virtual‑asset and tokenisation ecosystems across Africa.
Ghana has already laid a legal foundation with the Virtual Asset Service Providers Act, 2025 (Act 1154), which assigns the SEC responsibility for tokenisation, virtual‑asset issuance, exchanges, advisory services and funds. The Commission also runs a regulatory sandbox that lets firms test products under supervision before full licensing, ensuring rules are informed by real‑world experience.
Tokenisation is positioned as a key driver for unlocking capital in Africa’s vast real‑asset pool, from land and gold to cocoa and infrastructure. “Liquidity is value,” Dr Avedzi noted. By breaking assets into smaller digital interests, tokenisation can broaden the investor base, lower capital costs and finance projects that might otherwise remain inaccessible. AVAS 2026 will explore how to achieve this with trust and investor protection built in from the outset.
Deputy Director‑General Emmanuel Mensah Thompson said the summit will advance continental alignment on licensing, supervision and market rules. He cited a recent example where Ghanaian investors had to route a trans‑African annuity product through Canada because of regulatory constraints at home. “Ghana needs to lead the path,” he said.
International peers echoed this view. Nigeria’s SEC Director‑General Emomotimi Agama remarked that no single regulator can supervise this market alone because virtual assets do not respect borders. Ghana’s High Commissioner to the UK and Ireland, Sabah Zita Benson, called for partnerships that move beyond policy discussion into investment and technology transfer, pairing the UK’s financial‑services expertise with Ghana’s entrepreneurial capacity.
The programme, anchored by six thematic pillars—licensing, digital securities, AML/CFT, cross‑border cooperation, international standards and tokenisation—will feature more than 40 speakers from over 30 countries and attract more than 2,000 attendees. Sessions will cover regulation, governance, investor protection, stablecoins, CBDCs, digital payments and real‑world asset tokenisation across commodities, real estate, digital securities and capital markets.
Participants will include securities regulators, central banks, ministries of finance, financial intelligence units, stock exchanges, banks, asset managers, pension funds, insurance companies, virtual‑asset service providers, fintech and technology firms, institutional investors, law firms, compliance professionals, academics and development partners. The summit aims to provide delegates with first‑hand insight into emerging regulation, international best practice, tokenisation opportunities and direct engagement with regulators and investors.
“The choice before African markets is no longer whether virtual assets will exist, but how they will be governed,” the SEC stated at the launch. The summit invites regulators, market participants and partners to help shape that governance in Accra.
