From 17 to 19 June 2026, Accra became the centre of a global reckoning on one of history’s deepest wounds. Ghana hosted the High-Level Consultative Conference on the Next Steps to the landmark UN Resolution A/RES/80/250, which formally declared the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans and the racialised chattel enslavement of Africans as “the gravest crime against humanity.” The resolution, adopted on 25 March 2026 by a majority of 123 member states, marked the first time in the UN’s 80 year history that the General Assembly mandated comprehensive action on slavery and its enduring legacies.
The conference was convened by H.E. John Dramani Mahama, President of the Republic of Ghana, who has been widely recognised as the African Union Champion on Advancing the Cause of Justice and the Payment of Reparations. It unfolded across three venues over three days, opening with a Senior Officials and Technical Experts meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, moving to a high level segment at the Kempinski Hotel where heads of state and government delivered keynote remarks, and closing with a traditional durbar and Juneteenth commemoration at Christiansborg Castle in Osu, marking Ghana’s first observance of Juneteenth outside the United States.
The conference drew an extraordinary roster of participants. Heads of State and Government from Senegal, Namibia, Liberia, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Libya took part, alongside Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley of Barbados, former Vice President of Costa Rica Epsy Campbell Barr, and former Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Ralph Gonsalves. Nobel Laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka addressed the gathering, as did Dr Julius Garvey, son of Marcus Garvey, and Rev. Al Sharpton. Goodwill messages arrived from President Emmanuel Macron of France and the Foreign Minister of Denmark, while delegations from the African Union, CARICOM, CELAC, and the UN system were present throughout.
For institutions like the Pan African Heritage World Museum, the conference’s significance lies in its restitution and heritage agenda. The UN resolution itself calls for the prompt and unhindered restitution of cultural property, artefacts, manuscripts, and archives held by former colonial and slave trading nations, without charge, framed as a matter of justice rather than goodwill. This was reflected in the conference programme itself, which featured a symbolic restitution presentation by the Netherlands and Germany during the opening ceremony, and the establishment of an Expert Panel on the Restitution of Cultural Artefacts, one of three Global Panels launched in Accra to carry the resolution’s mandate forward.
Just as central to the proceedings was the question of the diaspora. Speaker after speaker returned to the same conviction, that reparatory justice cannot be separated from the work of rebuilding the bonds between Africa and its diaspora. Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye spoke of reconnecting Africa with its diaspora through memory, education, and culture, pointing to Gorée Island as a model of what sustained commemoration can achieve. The delegation of Equatorial Guinea echoed this, describing the joint Juneteenth commemoration held at the conference as a symbol of the deep human connection between the continent and Afro descendant communities worldwide, and an opportunity to deepen cultural, educational, economic, and political exchange between them.
As the resolution now moves from adoption toward implementation, the conference’s outcome document will feed into the UN Secretary General’s report to the 82nd session of the General Assembly.