By Francis Ntow, GNA
Accra, Nov. 4, GNA – The United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Financial Health (UNSGSA), Máxima Zorreguieta Cerruti, has urged Ghana to prioritise long-term financial resilience investment to protect households and businesses against future shocks.
The Queen of the Netherlands asked banks, fintechs, mobile money operators and other financial service providers to move beyond disconnected projects to building long-term products, including pensions, insurance and investment schemes.
Queen Máxima made the call at a Bank of Ghana (BoG) roundtable in Accra on Wednesday, where government officials, financial leaders and development partners discussed turning financial access into health and resilience.
She explained financial health as the extent to which a person or family can smoothly manage their current financial obligations and have confidence in their financial future.
She lauded Ghana’s access to finance but said access alone would not guarantee well-being, urging its translation into improvements in people’s ability to plan, save and invest, instead of over-indebtedness from poor-quality credit.
She made a case for financial health investment, noting that without it, employers would lose productivity when workers were worried about paying the next bill, while providers that invested in financial health become profitable far faster than expected.
“It (financial health) makes business sense and it’s good for the stability of the country. It’s good for mobilising domestic resources to actually make the investments we need to actually have productivity,” she said.
“Ghana is now positioned to start looking into the development of longer-term products, including pensions and insurance schemes at a time when insurance penetration remains only about three per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP),” Queen Máxima said.
She urged that Ghana’s financial health should be built on four pillars: daily money management, liquidity to bridge gaps, resilience against illness and climate shocks, and saving for education, retirement and business growth.
In his welcome address, Dr Johnson Pandit Asiama, Governor of the Bank of Ghana, said her presence reflected a growing recognition that improving financial health for individuals and businesses required collective action.
He said Ghana’s financial sector has transformed over the last decade through innovation, collaboration and digital infrastructure investment, making services accessible to millions, placing the country among Africa’s leading digital finance markets.
He, however, said the country had observed that access alone was not enough, and shifting the conversation towards ensuring that access translated into better financial health for households and businesses.
For Ghana, Dr Asiama said, productive and responsible credit was a key pathway to financial health, enabling households to invest in future and giving businesses capital to grow, innovate and create jobs.
“This is particularly important for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), that form the backbone of economic activity in Ghana, creating jobs, driving innovation and supporting livelihoods,” he said.
He explained that financial health was shaped by many interconnected factors – savings, insurance, pensions, investment opportunities and financial literacy, calling for sustained collaborative efforts from all stakeholders to fully realise it for everyone.
The Central Bank Governor encouraged leveraging technology, data and innovation to broaden access, reduce information asymmetries and create pathways for viable businesses to access finance on fair and sustainable terms.
The roundtable meeting forms part of Queen Máxima’s three-day official visit to Ghana, aimed at strengthening government and private sector efforts to improve financial health outcomes for all Ghanaians.
It builds on many meetings between Ghanaian leaders and the UNSGSA, including the 81st UN General Assembly and the 2026 International Monetary Fund (IMF)/World Bank Group (WBG) Spring Meetings.
GNA
Edited by Linda Asante Agyei
Reporter: Francis Ntow
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