Ghana to replicate digital innovation success in Malawi
The Malawian government has invited Ghana through the Minister for Communications, Digital Technology and Innovations, Samuel Nartey George for a bilateral arrangement under which Ghana will replicate every single bit of its success in digital innovation in that country.
The invitation was extended to Ghana by the Malawian Minister of Information and Digitalization, Dr. Shadric Namalomba during a meeting with Sam George at the ongoing Mobile World Congress 2026 in Barcelona, Spain.
Minister Sam George noted that on his recent state visit to Zambia with President John Dramani Mahama, he took along 12 Ghanaian technology and fintech firms, and after just three days, they returned home with a total of US$60 million worth of business deals.
According to him, that was testament of Ghana’s high reputation in digital innovation on the continent and how much others desire to learn from the Ghana example, adding that his counterpart in Zambia will soon come to Ghana on a working visit.
He said on the back of what happened in Zambia, his counterpart in Malawi also approached him to come assist that country to rollout a myriad of digital innovations in the coming years.
Sam George said Malawi wants assistance in the areas of fintech, digital ID systems, last mile connectivity, energy for rural connectivity, e-government, smart workplace, agritech, edutech,
“In fact, my colleague minister from Malawi specifically told me that his success as a minister solely depends on me and how I am able to get Ghanaian technology businesses to roll out their solutions in Malawi,” he said.
According to him, Malawi has an upcoming digital innovation week program and Ghana is invited to come along with business leaders in that sector to partner with their counterparts in Malawi with the view to replicating Ghana’s success in Malawi.
The Continental Vision
Sam George said the request from Malawi fits into his vision for Africa – to export Ghanaian technology solutions across the continent, adding that the choice of Zambia as his first stop was strategic because that country shares borders with by eight countries, including Malawi, and so it will be easily to make Zambia the hub from where service will be extended to other countries, including Malawi.
“For starters I will be sharing a copy of our revised legislations with them so that they can benchmark and fine tune them for their own purposes. I will also be sharing our AI strategy with them to build on it,” he said.
The Minister said very soon he will lead a delegation of between 15 to 20 technology businesses from Ghana to Malawi to go assist them with national ID solutions, fintech solutions, e-government portals, and more.
“For me, if we move Ghanaian businesses into the continent that is the only way we can achieve Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s dream of Ghana’s independence being linked to the total liberation of the African continent,” he stated.
Sam George said he is excited about how policymakers on the continent are now beginning to understand that “we are better off working among ourselves instead of reaching out to the usual tech giants outside of the continent. We are beginning to realize that a Ghanaian businessman has better understanding of the local nuances in Malawi than an American or Asian would.”
He said one Ghanaian business, Bahamus, is already doing some work in Malawi in the area of broadcast monitoring systems and soon a Malawian delegation will come Ghana on a working visit to under-study the country’s administration setting as well.
The bigger picture
Sam George said beyond Malawi, Ghana is even looking at bringing digital and tech industry policymakers and regulators along, to benchmark their regulations on that of Ghana to ensure regulatory harmony, on the back of which regulators in the respective African countries will implement license passporting to make the regulatory environment more enabling for industry players.
License passporting is a regulatory mechanism allowing financial firms authorized in one country to operate across the entire continent or sub-region, without needing separate licenses for each country. It enables firms to offer services via cross-border provision or branch establishment.
Sam George noted, for instance, that Zambia’s financial sector regulations were benchmarked on Bank of Ghana’s regulatory framework, so it should, for instance, be easy for the license of a payment service provider (PSP) in Ghana to be easily recognised by the Zambian regulator, and by extension even Malawi.
He believes policy support is critical in ensuring regulatory harmonization, so “as minister I am personally embarking on a project to get all my counterparts across the continent to benchmark their regulations on that of Ghana so that we can easily harmonize our regulations and make them more enabling for our respective businesses.”
The Minister’s mission to ensure regulatory harmonization across the continent, was the reason Ghana recently published all of its new industry legislative drafts so that others on the continent can have access to them and begin to find ways of mirroring what is happening in Ghana with the view to facilitating trade between the respective countries.
He is confident that with policy makers as the key drivers of regulatory harmonization, the African countries will soon get to the point where they will trade among themselves, make cross-border transfers and settle them without going through dollarization in New York before settlement, adding “that is when we will really be sovereign.”
