Ghana has committed to signing and ratifying a new United Nations convention aimed at making it easier for businesses to finance and move goods across borders, as Accra prepares to host the international signing ceremony later this month.
The Minister for Trade, Agribusiness and Industry, Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare, announced the commitment during a one-day virtual sensitisation programme for ECOWAS Member States on Wednesday, October 7, 2026, urging countries in the region to consider adopting the new framework.
The United Nations Convention on Negotiable Cargo Documents, adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 2025, establishes common legal rules for documents that represent goods while they are in transit. Unlike traditional negotiable transport documents largely associated with maritime trade, the new framework applies across different modes of transport, including road, rail, air and multimodal transportation.
The Convention is also designed to recognise negotiable cargo documents in electronic form, providing a legal basis for their issuance, transfer and use in an increasingly digital trading environment. It is intended to give banks, financial institutions, traders and other stakeholders greater certainty over the legal effect of such documents and the rights of their holders.
For businesses, the framework could make it easier to use goods in transit as part of trade-financing arrangements and could facilitate the sale of goods before they reach their final destination.
Ofosu-Adjare said Ghana’s commitment reflects thw government’s determination to support reforms that can strengthen trade, improve access to finance and deepen regional economic integration.
She noted that the sensitisation programme was intended to help ECOWAS Member States understand the Convention before making decisions on adoption and urged participating countries to assess it against their existing laws and regulatory frameworks and provide their governments with clear recommendations.
The Convention is particularly relevant to regional trade because it is designed to facilitate multimodal transportation through the use of a single negotiable cargo document covering a shipment’s journey across different modes of transport. The UN says this could reduce documentation requirements, improve operational efficiency and facilitate customs clearance.
The framework also addresses a longstanding limitation in transport documentation. While bills of lading have traditionally served as negotiable documents of title in maritime transport, similar documents used in road, rail and air transport have generally not provided the same legal function. The Convention seeks to extend that functionality across transport modes.
The digital component is equally significant. The Convention provides rules for electronic negotiable cargo documents, supporting the broader shift from paper-based trade documentation towards digital systems that can be recognised across jurisdictions.
Secretary of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, Anna Joubin-Bret, encouraged ECOWAS Member States and other stakeholders to engage fully with the Convention and contribute to efforts to secure broad international support for its implementation.
The Director of Trade who represented the ECOWAS Commission, Kolawole Sofola, also urged Member States to participate actively in the process and work towards securing regional and international backing for the Convention.
The UN General Assembly adopted the Convention without a vote on December 15, 2025, through Resolution 80/162. The resolution noted the importance of negotiable transport documents in facilitating trade finance and the sale of goods in transit, while stressing the need for uniform rules covering all modes of transport, including multimodal transport.
The resolution also recognised the potential of a harmonised legal framework to reduce trade costs along inland routes and help landlocked and other countries integrate more effectively into global supply chains. It further called attention to the need for legal certainty around electronic negotiable transport documents as international trade becomes increasingly digital.
The Convention will open for signature by states and regional economic integration organisations at a ceremony in Accra on October 26, 2026, with the UN recommending that it be known as the Accra Convention on Negotiable Cargo Documents.
For Ghana, the signing ceremony will place Accra at the centre of an emerging effort to modernise international trade documentation while giving the country an opportunity to shape discussions on how the new framework can support African trade and regional integration.
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