President Nana Akufo-Addo To Focus On 'Africa Beyond Aid' At Maiden UN Address

President Akufo Addo is preparing for his maiden speech at the United Nations General Assembly meeting on Thursday.

He said he will take the opportunity to highlight some of the major challenges impeding the development of Africa, and make suggestions on how they could be addressed, adding that a lot needs to be done to make the world a better place.

''I am preparing very well for Thursday, and l will use the opportunity for talk about the problems of Africa and how we can solve them,” Akufo-Addo said.

President Akufo Addo was speaking at the International Conference on the Sustainable Development Goals at the Colombia University in New York.

He will on Thursday give his maiden speech as President of the Ghana at the 72nd UN General Assembly meeting. The President said African leaders must do all they can to accelerate development in their respective countries.

“Africa must be efficient and effective not only in mobilizing resources, but also looking beyond the benevolence of others to finance implementation of the SDGs agenda.”

He added that he will use the occasion to tell the world why Africa must not rely on aid to develop.

“We are a continent reliant on foreign aid, despite economic growth in parts of Africa significantly outpacing the global average. Truth be told, the full implementation of the SDGs in Africa cannot be done with a mindset of dependence.”

The President stated that, the priority of African countries to this end, must be to change the structures of the economies on the continent, which are dependent largely on the production and export of raw materials, adding that “it is this reliance on raw material exports that feeds our dependence on foreign aid, and subjects us to the politics of the West.”