President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has urged assembled leaders to prioritise and focus on collective actions to strengthen Africa’s influence in the global economic order.
In an address to the Boma of Africa, he stressed on the importance of continental integration.
He also called on Africa to work together on a unified voice and approach to influencing the decisions taken in continental forums on crisis resolution.
“Continental unity and collective agency are the only paths to building influence to push successfully for the reform of the multilateral economic and financial systems that affect our ability to respond to crises that affect our rise as a continent,” President Akufo-Addo said.
Following recent global challenges like the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine, he said “Africa needs to accelerate the realisation of its envisaged institution for financial crisis resolution such as the Africa Monetary Fund.”
He noted that Africa’s progress depends on how effectively it builds continental buffers and cushions.
President Akufo-Addo added that Africa, therefore, needs to invest more in its own instruments for financial crisis management and speed up the emergence of a continental lender of last resort.
He also expressed concern that smaller economies, many of them in Africa, often suffer the harshest consequences of global downturns, though they contribute the least to the causes of these upheavals.
“We cannot assign the responsibility of managing crisis to domestic actors alone. We cannot leave small economies exposed to these vagaries of the international system to their fate and insist that they suffer the consequences alone.”
