Full Speech: Akufo-Addo speaks at UN General Assembly
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo made his debut statement at the 72nd Session of the UN General Assembly in New York.
Below is the full statement:
ADDRESS DELIEVERED BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF GHANA,
NANA ADDO DANKWA AKUFO-ADDO, AT THE 72ND SESSION OF THE UNITED NATIONS’
GENERAL ASSEMBLY, ON THURSDAY, 21ST SEPTEMBER, 2017, NEW YORK.
Mr. President, Your Excellencies.
It has been sixty years since my country, Ghana, became a member of
this Organisation. We joined at our independence some twelve years after
the first meeting of the Organisation in San Francisco, and Ghana has
been an active participant in the United Nations since then.
I want, Mr President, to thank the United Nations for the honour
done Ghana by my appointment, by the Secretary General, as co-Chair of
the Group of Advocates of Eminent Persons of the UN Sustainable
Development Goals, to continue in the position that was held by my
predecessor as President, His Excellency John Dramani Mahama. This mark
of trust in Ghana’s leaders is a matter of justifiable pride for the
Ghanaian people, a trust I pledge to uphold.
On 25th September, 2015, when the SDGs were adopted, there were
sceptics who feared that the goals were too many and too complex to be
successfully tackled, even with concerted effort.
The lesson that we have learnt, however, from the experience of this
Organisation is that, once the world puts its collective mind to
something, the chances are we would get it right.
And, every day, something happens to bring home to us, the
inhabitants of this planet, that we are in it together. There is no
better dramatic indication of this truth than the images that have
recently dominated our television screens of devastation caused by
floods in Houston Texas, in Dhaka Bangladesh, in Mumbai India, in Palpa
Nepal, in Dominica, Puerto Rico, Antigua and Barbuda, and St. Martin,
all in the Caribbean, and in Niamey Niger.
One of the most modern cities in the richest, most powerful nation
on our earth, was suffering the same fate as Niamey in the Sahel region
of Africa, one of the poorest parts of the world. At the height of the
raging waters, one thing has become clear: it does not matter if you are
in the richest or poorest part of the world, the awesome power of
nature was on display, and we, humans, came across as the same sad
creatures at the mercy of nature.
As I watched and listened, along with the rest of the world, it
occurred to me that, all put together, the SDGs are, indeed, a
worthwhile set of goals for the world. They bear repeating: no poverty,
zero hunger, good health and well-being, quality education, clean water
and sanitation, decent work and economic growth, industry, innovation
and infrastructure, reduced inequalities, sustainable cities and
communities, responsible consumption and production, life below water,
life on land, peace, justice and strong institutions and topped up with
partnerships for the goals. We should work hard to achieve these goals.
The world will be a much better place.
Ghana was the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to gain her
freedom from colonial rule. This year marks the 60th anniversary of that
independence, and it is auspicious that I am addressing this Assembly
for the first time on the birth date of our historic first President,
Kwame Nkrumah, a day we have set aside to commemorate him.
We believe it is time Africa comes of age and holds its rightful
place on the world stage. This Africa will be neither a victim nor a
pawn. This Africa will be honest to itself and to the world, and this
Africa will shed its cloak of poverty, and become prosperous.
We are not under any illusions about the hard work that it will take
to achieve our stated goals, but we are not afraid of hard work. We
know that a critical ingredient in making sustainable economic progress
is to ensure a stable democratic system of governance.
I believe we are making this progress in Ghana. After years of
political turmoil and the accompanying economic chaos, a consensus has
emerged in our Fourth Republic. We have had political stability for the
last 25 years under a multi-party democracy, where regular elections are
now an accepted feature of our governance.
I am here, today, because of elections last December in which the
people of Ghana voted out an incumbent government, and gave me and my
party the mandate and honour to govern our nation for the next four
years. We continue to be a beacon of democracy and stability on the
continent, our institutions of state are growing stronger, and we have
made more progress with our economy than at any time since independence.
Mr President, we are nowhere near where we want to be, but we are
determined to realise our potential and make Ghana a prosperous nation.
There will always be adventurers amongst us Ghanaians who would want
to seek challenges in different parts of the world, and we would wish
them well, and expect that wherever they go, they would be welcome and
treated with dignity.
But we are working to grow our economy and open up opportunities for
all our citizens. No longer should Ghanaians feel they have to subject
themselves to the intolerable and inhumane conditions of crossing the
Sahara, and drowning in the Mediterranean, in the hope of making a
living in Europe.
We have just started the Free Senior High School programme, which
aims to guarantee secondary education for all of Ghana’s children. The
programme will ensure that all our children will be educated to at least
secondary level, and money, or the lack of it, will no longer mean a
denial of education. This has already led to an increase of over 90,000
children, who have entered secondary school this academic year, who
would otherwise have dropped out at this stage. SDG 4, which aims at
ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting
lifelong learning opportunities for all, will be within our reach by the
target date.
We do not want to be a scar on anybody’s conscience. We want to
build an economy that is not dependent on charity and handouts. Long and
bitter experience has taught us no matter how generous the charity, we
would remain poor.
We want to build a Ghana which looks to the use of its own resources
and their proper management as the way to engineer social and economic
growth in our country. We want to build an economy that looks past
commodities to position our country in the global marketplace.
We are not disclaiming aid, but we do want to discard a mind-set of
dependency and living on handouts; we want to build a Ghana beyond aid.
It is an easier platform on which to build sustainable relationships.
In talking about sustainable relations, Africa, and, indeed, Ghana,
remains committed to remaining a nuclear weapon-free continent. Three
weeks ago, highly-enriched uranium was flown out of Ghana back to China,
signalling the end of the removal of all such material from the
country. Our nuclear reactor has, subsequently, been converted to use
low-enriched fuel for power generation. A world, free of nuclear
weapons, must be in all our collective interest.
Mr. President, I wish to reaffirm my country’s commitment to
maintaining friendly and cordial relations with all the countries and
peoples of the world. The full engagement of Ghana, through the Economic
Community of West African States (ECOWAS), in the process of West
African integration, and through the African Union (AU), in the process
of African integration, remains a goal of my government. Regional and
continental integration are in Ghana’s interest, as they represent one
of the surest ways towards establishing the conditions for prosperity in
our region and on the continent in the decades ahead, as well as
helping to ensure peace and security and combating the scourges of
terrorism, extremism and intolerance. The conflicts that continue to
plague our continent in Libya, South Sudan, Congo DRC, and Mali, would
be more effectively resolved if the international community was to
support, not undermine, the efforts of our regional and continental
organisations to deal with them. Ghana will also continue to be active in the multilateral organisations to which we belong, such as
La Francophonie, the Commonwealth of Nations, and this United Nations,
because we believe multilateral action and international co-operation
are in the interest of all of us.
We want to build a Ghana that will enable our people deal with the
rest of the world on an equal basis. I say nothing new, when I draw
attention to the urgent need to reform this Organisation.
It has been talked about and scheduled for a long time, but,
somehow, we have never found the courage and the will to reform the
United Nations. Ghana supports the process of UN Reform, especially of
the UN Security Council, as set out in Africa’s Common Position on UN
Reform, based on the Ezulwini Consensus. The time is long overdue to
correct the longstanding injustice that the current structure and
composition of the UN Security Council represent for the nations of
Africa.
We cannot continue to preach democracy and fairness around the
world, we cannot insist on peace and justice around the world, when our
global organisation is not seen by the majority of its members as having
a structure that is just and fair. It is, indeed, seen by many as
helping to perpetuate an unfair world order.
This Organisation provides the best vehicle for the world to manage
its many varied problems, and we would undermine its credibility and
fail in our duty if we do not reform the United Nations. We dare not let
ourselves and future generations down. The time for reform has come.
I thank you very much for your attention.
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