Ghana is hosting FESTAC Africa Renaissance Festival 2025 at the Black Star Square

Ghana, through the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) in collaboration with the FESTAC AFRICA Renaissance Festival, is hosting the FESTAC AFRICA Festival 2025 to promote African cultural heritage, trade and diplomacy.  

The FESTAC AFRICA is a pan-African movement of cultural reclamation which seems to honour ancestral wisdom, promote economic empowerment and African trade, with this year’s edition happening at the Black Star Square.?   

The festival, a seven-day African extravaganza, which was opened in Accra, September 21, would end on September 27 with series of activities earmarked to make participants enjoy their roots and create value for themselves.?  

There would be a set of movie screenings at the festival where the African stories would be told the African way with their usual innovation.?  

One of the African movies selected to captivate the audiences and participants is “A Kiss Too Late,” by FHAD Films, which would be shown throughout the festival at different times. Other movies are “For IKEMEFUNA,” “Never Mine,” and “Clout.”?  

Mr Yinka Abioye, Chairman, FESTAC AFRICA Festival, said the event was not just a festival but a resuscitation of a dream – a dream that united the continent and the diaspora where the youth of Africa would function in a borderless continent and world.?  

He said: “Africa’s culture must be the foundation, trade must be the engine and unity must be our destination. Our culture is our compass and currency, let’s look to our ancestors, elder and youth for the blueprints of our renaissance. Ghana, with its unmatched heritage and unity is the rightful podium for this renaissance.”?  

Mr Carl Ampah, Cultural Programme Officer, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in a speech, said, the festival was a reminder that Africa’s creative renaissance was inseparable from its social transformation.  

He said by placing culture at the centre of trade, diplomacy, gender equality, climate action and sustainable tourism, it was a real step towards the realisation of the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.?  

“Let us use this Festival to celebrate what has been done and to renew our commitment that Africa’s voice is heard, her heritage respected and her future shaped by her own hands, traditions, languages and dreams,” he added.?  

Madam Nyiko Khoza, Programme Lead, Africa Creatives, Sports and Recreation Programme, at African Union Development Agency – New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AUDA-NEPAD), said the FESTAC AFRICA Festival was to revive Pan-

Speaking on behalf of Ms. Nardos Bekele-Thomas, Chief Executive Officer, AUDA-NEPAD, Madam Khoza said the FESTAC agenda must place Africa’s youth at its centre since by

“It is our greatest opportunity and our greatest test. This is where culture and creativity meet industrialisation. Too often, fashion, art, heritage and sport are seen only as cultural expression but we must frame them as strategic industrial sectors,” she said.?  

“Every Kente cloth woven here in Ghana, every Chitenge in Zambia, every cotton field in Mali and every bead or sculptures across our continent are not just cultural treasures, they are economic drivers. They are the raw materials of value chains, industries and markets that can employ millions and position Africa as a global player,” Madam Khoza added.?  

Source: GNA?  

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