The Bank of Ghana (BoG) is currently using gold as a central tool to rebuild reserves, stabilise the currency and restore investor confidence after losing access to international capital markets during the country’s recent debt crisis.
First Deputy Governor Dr. Zakari Mumuni made this known at CNVERGE’25 hosted by the Ghana International Bank (GHIB), adding that the central bank’s strategy of leveraging domestic gold resources has become critical for hedging sovereign risk and insulating the economy from external shocks.
It is recalled that the nation’s macroeconomic troubles escalated in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia-Ukraine war, which deepened fiscal and debt vulnerabilities. This downturn triggered sovereign credit downgrades and shut the country out of global debt markets, blocking a key source of foreign exchange inflows.
With investor confidence weakened and external funding curtailed, government finances deteriorated and reliance on central bank financing added to inflationary pressures.
“These events exposed structural vulnerabilities in our fiscal and debt frameworks,” Dr. Mumuni said, noting that the crisis forced a rethink of the country’s reserve management strategy to build greater resilience against future shocks.
The policy response’s centrepiece was the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme (DGPP), launched in June 2021 to double the central bank’s gold reserves within five years from a starting point of 8.74 tonnes.
The programme aimed to diversify the foreign exchange reserve portfolio, use gold holdings to secure cheaper collateralised financing and strengthen market confidence through more robust reserve buffers.
Before the DGPP, Ghana exported nearly all its gold output despite being Africa’s top producer in 2019 and the world’s seventh-largest. Gold accounted for more than half of export earnings but featured little in reserve assets, with the country relying heavily on cocoa syndicated loans and Eurobond proceeds.
Dr. Mumuni noted the gold-backed measures had contributed to exchange rate stability, eased inflationary pressures and supported Ghana’s credit rating upgrade to B- with a stable outlook in June 2025.
The bank also introduced its Ghana Gold Coin, a high-purity investment product intended as a store of value, inflation hedge and alternative asset class. It can also be used as a monetary policy tool to manage excess liquidity.
Over the past year, global gold prices have surged to record highs, with bullion climbing from around US$2,100 per ounce in early 2024 to between US$3,500 and US$3,534 in recent months.
