Ruto puts Kenya at centre of Accra Reset push to make African skills portable

NAIROBI, Kenya, Sept 22 — President William Ruto has announced that Kenya will lead the first national implementation of Masterkey, a digital platform designed to make African skills, qualifications and work experience portable across borders.

Ruto made the announcement at the Accra Reset’s high-level convening on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York, where African leaders and global partners discussed proposals aimed at giving developing countries greater control over their development priorities.

Masterkey is designed as a publicly governed digital skills and work wallet through which people can hold and securely share verified records of their qualifications and employment experience with employers, recruitment services and other authorised recipients.

“Masterkey will provide trusted digital infrastructure which people can securely share verified records of skills, qualifications and work experience across institutions, employers and borders,” Ruto said.

“Citizens will retain control over what they share while participating countries retain sovereignty over their institutions and data.”

Kenya’s planned implementation will make Masterkey accessible through eCitizen, with core access and sharing intended to be free to citizens.

A staged pilot will seek to connect existing training and employment channels before wider rollout.

“Africa must be a builder of the technologies defining this century and a contributor to the rules that govern them,” Ruto said.

He said the initiative would help organise African capabilities at scale and expand opportunities for workers across borders.

“The principle is simple: talent should be portable, skills should be trusted and opportunities should cross borders. We will demonstrate this in practice with our African partners,” he said.

The initiative is being developed under the Accra Reset and Global Reset Dialogues, with a focus on connecting domestic employment, remote work and lawful international mobility.

Masterkey is not intended to award jobs, visas or professional recognition. Instead, it would enable participating institutions and employers to issue verifiable records that workers can choose to share, allowing recipients to check the issuer and the status of the record.

A qualification earned in Kenya, an overseas client reference or work experience acquired abroad could therefore form part of an accumulating career record rather than remain tied to a single recruitment platform or institution.

The initiative builds on earlier Ghana-Spain corridor design work and seeks reciprocal arrangements intended to benefit workers, employers and countries of origin.

Mahama pushes Accra Reset from design to implementation

Ruto’s announcement came as Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama pressed for the Accra Reset to move from policy proposals to implementation.

Mahama launched the initiative after convening a health sovereignty summit in Accra in August 2025.

At the New York gathering, he called for action on recommendations contained in a new report on reforming the global health architecture.

“We are now moving from design to execution. Too often, visionary ideas are born with great fanfare, only to die quietly in New York’s diplomatic corridors. We will not let that happen to the Accra Reset,” Mahama said.

The High-Level Panel’s report, A Sovereign Future for Health, contains 10 recommendations covering health planning and financing, regional institutions, manufacturing, procurement, humanitarian continuity and independent accountability.

Mahama said the wider agenda was driven by what he described as three interconnected challenges facing the Global South: geopolitical vulnerability, geostrategic marginalisation and donor dependence.

He argued that greater national control must be matched by accountability, saying countries cannot claim ownership of development programmes without meaningful control over the decisions and resources that shape them.

The Accra Reset has since expanded beyond health to areas including human capital, migration, trade and international economic cooperation.

Its Global Reset Dialogues are intended to provide a platform for governments from the Global South and Global North to negotiate cooperation around shared interests, including migration, trade and other economic priorities.

Wider African initiatives

Masterkey was one of several initiatives unveiled or advanced during the New York gathering.

The programme also featured Mother Africa, a maternal and child health initiative championed by Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan, with Tanzania’s Vice President representing her at the event.

Namibia’s President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah was also scheduled to contribute to the initiative.

Mother Africa calls for stronger skilled care, reliable supplies of essential medicines, accountable financing, improved maternal and perinatal death data, and better water, sanitation and electricity in health facilities.

Another initiative, the Sankoree Institute of Global Negotiators (SIGN), seeks to strengthen African governments’ capacity to negotiate complex international economic and development agreements.

Rwanda’s Prime Minister represented President Paul Kagame’s championship of the initiative at the New York gathering.

SIGN is anchored in Kigali through the African School of Governance and focuses on areas including critical minerals, trade and climate negotiations.

The discussions also brought together former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley.

Representatives from the World Health Organization, the Commonwealth, the OECD and the Group of 77 and China also attended, underscoring the Accra Reset’s effort to broaden its engagement beyond African governments.

For Kenya, Masterkey provides a practical entry point into that wider agenda, with the planned eCitizen-based wallet intended to give workers a portable record of qualifications, professional references and work experience.

Ruto said the initiative was ultimately aimed at ensuring that technological progress translated into economic opportunity.

“The Accra Reset provides a practical platform to advance this ambition and ensure that technological progress delivers shared prosperity,” he said.