Article: President Akufo-Addo’s leadership shows forth at the 77th session of the UN General Assembly

President Akufo-Addo much as we have come to associate with his forthright style of leadership gave the world a taste of that when he addressed the 77th Session of the UN General Assembly in New York City on Wednesday 21 September 2022.

He stated to world leaders that the world needed to confront and accept the fact that the Russia-Ukraine war is responsible for a lot of the current global economic challenges. His to a room full of global and world leaders, who listened without refute and rebuttal, emphasized what has been up until now a point of disagreement.

The speech emphasized the impact of Russia’s invasion on Ukraine which President Akufo-Addo states have aggravated an already difficult situation. The President noted that while the economic turmoil is global, inflation has hit a 40-year high in the US and UK as well as in the Eurozone, in Africa, the effects are more severe, and “every bullet, every bomb, every shell that hits a target in Ukraine, hits our pockets and our economies.”

Much in line with what the President has been stating back home in Ghana, and which his opponents mischievously sought to discredit, President Akufo-Addo told the gathering of world leaders that it is a fact that the pandemic had “pushed Africa into the worst recession for half a century; caused a slump in productivity and revenues, and caused increased pressures on spending and spiraling public debts.”

The President’s address also brought to memory the clarion call in the early days of his administration six years ago, when he said ‘we need to build a Ghana beyond Aid; that is to say we must do aid and development better and foster growth through collaborative efforts.

To show commitment to this call and create a pathway out of poverty into self-reliance, President Akufo- Addo’s administration introduced the one district one factory (1D1F) policy and championed the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

The two policies are poised to, if done well, cushion Ghana and Africa in general from the results of the sort of current global challenges it is faced with today.

The one district one factory policy for instance has directly seen, so far, some one hundred and twenty-five factories being set up in various districts across the country and creating countless jobs to bring down the unemployment figures.

President Akufo-Addo’s address also tasked world leaders to see Africa’s lucrative agro-industry and agri-business as an opportunity for growth that should be supported rather than seen in the light of the perceived, exaggerated risk which is a false but dominant narrative.

His call to the leaders was for them to “see Africa for what it is; the new frontier for manufacturing, for technology, for food production”.

He said the lessons that we have had to take in, as the world emerges from the grip of the coronavirus to worldwide rise in the cost of living, is ‘the necessity for a reformation of the system and a review of the inherent inequalities in the way that the international financial structure relates to developing and emerging economies, as well as a disposing of the way financial markets put up a façade of international co-operation but operate on rules designed for the benefit of the rich and powerful nations.

His address was clear on the issues but equally clear on the solutions. Stating that a solution is to commit towards inclusive and sustainable industrialization and economic integration and to see the current geopolitical crises as an opportunity to rely less on food imports from outside the continent and increase food production”.

He stated that Africa and Ghana do not have the luxury of being able to pick and choose which big problem to solve as none of them can wait and that “the unrest in the Sahel is not just a local conflict, it affects us and we are having to spend huge amounts of money on security, using money that should be spent on educating and giving skills to our young people, on building much-needed roads and bridges, hospitals and other such infrastructure to fight terrorists”.

The President’s call abroad has been made in Ghana over his tenure in office, where he has encouraged to start taking advantage of the various government policies aimed at increasing food production and manufacturing and working towards self-reliance which will insulate citizens from the impact of global crises such as the one we currently face.

Writer is Richard Ahiagbah, Director of Communications, New Patriotic Party (NPP)

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