The UN Secretary-General’s Special Advocate says opening bank accounts is not enough — Ghana must measure whether people are actually financially secure.
Ghana should create a Financial Health Council to bring government and private sector efforts under one roof, Queen Máxima of the Netherlands has said.
The Queen serves as the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Advocate for Financial Health, a role that involves pushing countries to widen access to useful financial services. She made the call in Accra at the joint inauguration of the Working Committee on the National Financial Inclusion and Development Strategy, as reported by the Ghanaian Times.
What the committee has been asked to do
The newly inaugurated working committee has been given the job of drafting Ghana's next national strategy document on financial inclusion and development. The strategy is intended to guide implementation over a five-year window, from 2027 to 2031.
That timeline matters. It means the decisions taken by this committee over the coming months will shape how banks, mobile money operators, insurers and pension providers are expected to serve Ghanaians for the rest of the decade.
Inclusion is not the finish line
Queen Máxima's central argument was that financial inclusion — getting people signed up for accounts and services — should be treated as a tool rather than a destination.
She said access to bank accounts, insurance, pensions and other financial products is valuable, but having them does not automatically mean a household is financially secure or better off.
Instead, she pointed to financial health as the real measure. By her description, financial health rests on four things: being able to manage money day to day, being able to absorb a financial shock, being able to meet long-term financial goals, and feeling confident about one's own financial position.
It is a distinction that will be familiar to many Ghanaian households. A person may hold a mobile money wallet and a bank account and still be unable to cover a sudden hospital bill, a funeral, or a school fees deadline.
Why a council?
The proposed Financial Health Council would, in Queen Máxima's framing, serve as a coordinating body so that state agencies and private financial institutions are not each pulling in different directions. Coordination of this kind is usually aimed at avoiding duplication and making sure progress can be tracked against agreed targets.
What it means for Ghanaians abroad
For Ghanaians in the United States and elsewhere who send money home regularly, the shift in language is worth watching. A strategy built around financial health rather than account numbers would focus more on whether remittances and savings actually leave families more resilient, and less on how many people have signed up for a product.
The working committee's strategy document is the next concrete step to watch.
