President John Dramani Mahama on Thursday co-chaired the second plenary session on the ‘Economy: Co-create Innovative Solutions with Africa’ of the ongoing 9th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) in Yokohama, Japan.
Mr Mahama co-chaired the session with former Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, with interventions from Kenyan President William Ruto, Togolese leader Faure Gnassingbe, and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa. The UN Under-Secretary General Cristina Duarte and Comoros President Azali Assoumani also delivered remarks.
In his concluding remarks, President Mahama said TICAD-9 is happening at a time of a rapidly changing world order.
“The world’s largest economy, which should be the driver of global trade and investments, has become more insular and transactional in its relationship with the rest of the world”, he noted.
He had advice for African leaders and their people: “Africa is open for business. We wish to partner with any nation in the world on a win-win basis. But let’s not kid ourselves! Trade and investments will not come to Africa because we wish for it.”
According to President Mahama, “Africa must undertake the hard but necessary reforms, as countries on the continent, to make Africa an attractive destination for investments.”
“That is why we must silence the guns and stop the fighting. That is why we must reform our economies and make them more stable and predictable. This is why we must reform our governance and make public service accountable and corruption-free”, Mr Mahama added.
Africa Fact: Many southern Africans have indigenous and pre-colonial words for ‘gun’. Scholars have generally been reluctant to investigate or explain this fact.
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Fun South African Fact: The world’s largest visible crater is in South Africa.
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Fun South African Fact: South Africa is extremely rich in mining and minerals and considered the world’s leader with nearly 90% of all the platinum metals on earth and around 41% of all the world’s Gold!