President John Dramani Mahama has called for a fundamental shift in the way Africa manages and benefits from its natural resources, arguing that the continent must move beyond exporting raw materials and importing finished products.
Speaking in an interview wit TRT, the President says African countries must increase local processing and manufacturing if they are to retain a greater share of the wealth generated from their resources and create more jobs for their growing populations.
For President Mahama, the issue is central to Africa’s quest for economic self-reliance.
He argues that the continent cannot achieve lasting prosperity if it continues to export raw materials while importing products manufactured from those same resources at significantly higher costs.
Ghana, he said, is pursuing greater local value addition in key commodities, including cocoa and minerals, with an ambition to significantly increase domestic processing by 2030.
The President believes processing resources within Africa would allow countries to capture more value, expand industries, create employment and strengthen government revenues.
He also identified Africa’s youthful population and growing technological capabilities as major opportunities that could support the continent’s economic transformation.
According to him, Africa has significant advantages that can be harnessed to overcome some of the structural disadvantages that have historically constrained its development.
However, President Mahama stressed that economic self-reliance should not mean shutting Africa off from the rest of the world.
Instead, he wants African countries to maintain international partnerships while changing the basis on which those partnerships are formed.
“We don’t reject partnerships, but those partnerships must be on our terms,” he said.
He argued that stronger African economies would allow the continent to negotiate with international partners from a position of greater strength and ensure that cooperation produces mutual benefits.
The President also rejected the notion that Africa’s economic transformation would threaten other parts of the world.
“Africa’s prosperity is not a threat to anybody. Indeed, Africa’s prosperity will be a benefit to the whole global economy,” he said.
He explained that a more prosperous Africa would create larger consumer markets, attract investment and generate new opportunities for international businesses.
President Mahama’s vision is therefore not one of isolation, but of a continent that is more confident in its economic capabilities and better able to determine how its resources are used.
For him, Africa’s future lies in moving from a predominantly raw-material-exporting continent to one that processes, manufactures, trades and creates value within its own economies.
The ultimate objective, he said, is an Africa whose economic progress strengthens the continent while contributing positively to the wider global economy.
