African Leaders Must Seek Peace, Prosperity” - President Akufo-Addo
The President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has
urged the next generation of African leaders to seek peace and
prosperity for the long suffering masses on the African continent.
According to President Akufo-Addo, “If we are going to build prosperous
countries, we should have peace, and those who would lead Africa must
seek and cherish peace.”
The President made this known when he
delivered the keynote address at the 27th Africa Peace Leadership
Awards, organised by the Centre for African Peace and Conflict
Resolution of the California State University, Sacramento, on Saturday,
28th April, 2018.
With pervasive poverty being Africa’s biggest
problem, and which is likely to pose Africa’s biggest security threat,
President Akufo-Addo stated that Africa needs to have peace to deal with
this debilitating problem.
“As they say, “l’argent n’aime pas le
bruit” (money does not like noise), and, indeed, we would all agree
that where there is chaos, where there is noise, where there is unrest,
you are not likely to find money or the widespread prosperity that will
enable the longsuffering masses of Africans to live lives of dignity,”
he said.
African leaders, the President noted must “have more
self-confidence and accept that we shall never reach the level of
development we aspire to by relying on aid or external assistance, no
matter how generous. It is a mindset that I wish us to discard, a
mind-set of dependency and living on handouts; it is unhealthy both for
the giver and for the recipient.”
He explained that the next
generation of African leaders would have to understand that they cannot
draw up their national budgets, with the expectation that a percentage
of revenue will be coming from donor nations.
“They have to
appreciate, and work with the reality that, properly harnessed and
efficiently and honestly managed, there are abundant resources on the
continent to finance its own development,” the President noted.
Citing the report on the illicit financial outflows authored by a
Commission headed by former South African President, Thiago Mbeki,
President Akufo-Addo stated that Africa is losing, annually, more than
$50 billion through illicit financial outflows, the President urged the
gathering to imagine the implications of Africa ensuring that even 50%
of these amounts remain on the continent.
Transformation of African economies; Free Trade
Touching on the creation and growth of an entrepreneurial economy in Africa, President Akufo-Addo explained that it provides the basis for undertaking the urgent task of the structural transformation of African economies.
“The next generation of African leaders will have to
move away from economies, which are dependent largely on the production
and export of raw materials, to value-added, industrial ones, and
stimulate greater agricultural productivity, with the help of digital
technology. This will accelerate economic growth, enable us feed
ourselves, and create the much needed jobs for our youth”, he said.
This process of structural transformation, he said, will be
immeasurably aided by the successful implementation of the Continental
Free Trade Area Agreement, which an overwhelming majority of African
countries recently signed in Kigali, Rwanda, on 21st March, 2018. 22
countries need to ratify it to bring it into effect.
The success
of the free trade area, he noted, would mean that the era of low volumes
of intra-continental trade that have defined the activities of the
African economies will come to an end.
“An increase in
intra-regional trade in Africa is the surest way to develop fruitful
relations between our respective countries. It will mean a rapid
increase in exchanges of our agricultural, financial, industrial,
scientific and technological products, which would enhance dramatically
our attainment of prosperity, and the prospects of employment for the
broad masses of Africans, particularly our youth.
Our economies would
then be shaped not by the production and export of raw materials, but by
the things we make,” he said.
Whilst urging African leaders to
protect their environment, President Akufo-Addo urged them to implement
the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals, as “they represent the most
ambitious plan the global community has yet devised to eradicate global
poverty, and, hopefully, leave no one behind. There is no group of
peoples with a greater stake in the realisation of the SDGs than the
African peoples, for reasons that are self-evident.”
Despite the
numerous challenges confronting the continent, President Akufo-Addo
stated that “Africa is on the cusp of building a great, new
civilisation, which will unleash the considerable energies and huge
potential of the African peoples, so that we will make our own unique
contribution to the growth of world civilisation.”
President
Akufo-Addo was also given the Africa Peace Leadership Award by the
Centre for African Peace and Conflict Resolution of the University.
Source: Wilberforce A. Asare
No comments
Your comments and Encouragement are welcome