From Default to Upgrade: Is Ghana’s Comeback Built to Last?

Three years ago, Ghana was the cautionary tale of African finance.

After years of heavy borrowing and external shocks, the country defaulted on its international debt in 2022 and scrambled into a $3 billion IMF programme in 2023. Eurobond coupons went unpaid, inflation blew out, the cedi plunged and confidence evaporated.

Fast-forward to late 2025 and the headlines look very different.

Ghana has:

• Completed the restructuring of its Eurobonds (around $13 billion) in October 2024;

• Secured a $2.8 billion debt relief deal with official bilateral creditors; and

• Just been upgraded by S&P to B-/B, with Moody’s also raising its rating and both agencies citing fiscal consolidation, stronger reserves and reform momentum.

Inflation, which was above 20% at the start of 2025, has now fallen to 6.3% in November, its lowest since the 2021 rebasing and well inside the central bank’s 8% ±2 target band.

The cedi has appreciated by roughly 30% against the dollar in 2025, making it one of Africa’s best-performing currencies this year.

And the Ghana Stock Exchange Composite Index is up more than 76% year-to-date, one of the strongest equity rallies on the continent.

On the surface, Ghana has staged a remarkable comeback.

The obvious question is: how solid is it?

From crisis to “B-”: what actually changed?

The rating upgrades and market rally are not just about sentiment. Several concrete shifts have taken place.

1. Debt restructuring at speed

Ghana moved unusually quickly for a sovereign debtor. It:

• Completed a domestic debt exchange in 2023, extending maturities and cutting coupons on cedi-denominated bonds;

• Finalised a Eurobond restructuring in October 2024, swapping old notes for new instruments and securing significant NPV relief; and

• In June 2025, sealed a $2.8 billion deal with its official bilateral creditors, rescheduling payments due from end-2022 to 2026 out into 2039–2043 on below-market interest rates.

The result: near-term external debt service has been slashed, freeing space in the budget.

2. A tougher fiscal framework

The new administration that took office after the December 2024 elections has committed to:

• Running a primary surplus of around 1.5% of GDP each year;

• Gradually reducing public debt toward 45% of GDP by 2034; and

• Tightening rules around central-bank financing of the budget.

Whether these rules hold politically is an open question. But the framework is there in black and white, and ratings agencies have taken note.

3. Reserves rebuilt, external picture improved

Foreign-exchange reserves have risen sharply. S&P now expects gross reserves to reach roughly $10–11 billion (about 9% of GDP) by the end of 2025, up from around $6.8 billion a year earlier, supported by gold and cocoa exports and official financing.

That, plus the debt relief, has helped stabilise Ghana’s external position and underpinned the cedi’s rally.

4. IMF programme still in place – with caveats

In July 2025, the IMF completed the fourth review of Ghana’s Extended Credit Facility, unlocking another disbursement and keeping the 36-month programme on track.

But the Fund has also flagged “significant deterioration” in programme performance in 2024, driven by fiscal slippages and higher-than-target inflation, and warned that stronger revenue mobilisation and structural reforms are still needed.

In other words: the patient is out of intensive care, but not discharged.

Markets vote “yes” – for now

For investors, the turnaround is already visible:

• The cedi’s 2025 rally has slashed FX losses for local investors and made imports cheaper, even as it reduced the local value of hard-currency assets.

• The Ghana Stock Exchange has delivered equity-like returns reminiscent of the pre-crisis years, driven by financials and selected consumer names.

• Rating upgrades from Moody’s and S&P have opened the door to lower future borrowing costs and potential re-entry into global bond indices if progress continues.

For Ghanaian households and firms, falling inflation from more than 23% in late 2024 to 6.3% in November 2025 has been even more tangible. Food prices are still high, but the sense of permanent crisis has eased.

The danger with success stories, however, is that they can erase the memory of how quickly the situation can turn.

The risks that haven’t gone away

Ghana’s upgrade is real. So are the risks.

1. High debt, long road

Even after restructuring, public debt is high by emerging-market standards, and a large part sits on the domestic balance sheet in the form of longer-dated, lower-coupon paper. The relief is front-loaded: repayments to official creditors and Eurobond holders rise again in the 2030s and 2040s.

The fiscal rules will need to survive multiple election cycles to keep the trajectory credible.

2. Programme fatigue and reform politics

There is already domestic debate over the IMF deal – calls to “adjust” its conditions, complaints from businesses about tax pressure and high rates, and understandable reform fatigue after years of crisis.

If revenue measures or spending controls are watered down, ratings, markets and the cedi will respond quickly.

3. Concentration risk for local investors

Ghana’s banks, pension funds and insurers still hold large volumes From Default to Upgrade: Is Ghana’s Comeback Built to Last? government paper after the domestic debt exchange, often at restructured terms. The recent rally has eased mark-to-market pain, but it has not eliminated the underlying concentration of sovereign risk on domestic balance sheets.

If confidence wobbles again, local institutions are on the front line.

What Ghana’s comeback means for African investors

For investors across Africa, Ghana’s experience carries three lessons:

1. Defaults are survivable – with discipline and speedThe combination of rapid restructuring, IMF engagement and rule-based fiscal reforms can restore market access faster than many expect.

2. Currencies can move both waysThe cedi’s swing from one of Africa’s worst performers in 2023–24 to one of its best in 2025 shows that FX risk can cut both ways – punishing the unhedged on the way down, but also those who assume depreciation is permanent.

3. Domestic institutions need better toolsWhen sovereigns restructure, it is often local banks and pension funds that absorb the shock. They need infrastructure that lets them see and manage their exposures across assets, currencies and mandates – not just react after the fact.

That is where the “plumbing” of the system matters.

How Verī Platform helps clarify Ghana exposure

Veri Platform operates behind regulated institutions – not in front of retail investors – and is built for exactly these kinds of situations.

For banks, asset managers, pension funds and insurers in Ghana and across the region, Verī can:

• Consolidate all Ghana exposures – local-currency T-bills and bonds, Eurobond holdings, Ghana-focused funds, equity positions – into a single, look-through view at portfolio and client level.

• Map currency, duration and issuer risk so boards and risk teams can see how much depends on Ghana’s fiscal story staying on track.

• Integrate non-Ghana assets – pan-African strategies, global bonds and equities – to show how Ghana risk sits alongside other country and sector exposures.

• Produce regulator-friendly reporting that makes it easier for supervisors to understand where in the system Ghana risk is concentrated, and how it is evolving as markets move.

Veri does not decide whether Ghana is a buy, hold or sell.

It provides the architecture so that when a sovereign moves from default to upgrade – or the other way – decision-makers can see the whole picture and act deliberately, rather than flying blind.

A recovery worth watching – and measuring

Ghana’s shift from crisis to upgrade is one of the most striking turnarounds in African finance this decade.

It shows what is possible when restructuring, reforms and a bit of good fortune in commodities and currency all line up.

But it is not the end of the story.

The coming years will test whether:

• Fiscal rules survive political pressure;

• Growth converts into durable revenue, not just headline stories; and

• Domestic institutions can build truly diversified portfolios, rather than simply re-leveraging into the same sovereign risk with lower coupons.

For investors and policymakers alike, the key is not just to celebrate Ghana’s comeback, but to measure and manage how much of their future depends on it.

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