Africa is should never be seen as a continent that needs generosity we want to be treated as equals
welcome to the African leadership Series where we bring you great inspirational speeches of
African leaders and the other important thing for this to happen it will help us
not to participate as unequal cousins in these institutions it will help us to participate fully
and so that we don't have a sense that we are beggars that we are being dealt with out of
generosity I think it's important in the new era that the world is in now that there should
be a good measure of equality among Sovereign Nations you know recently seven African countries
decided to go to go and put a call for peace to Ukraine and to Russia
and we raise the number of issues Zambia was represented comoros was represented Republic
of Congo as represented Senegal was represented Uganda as well as South Africa so we were all
represented and Egypt as well so we were all at one that even as we were going to address an issue
of the war which has had a negative impact on the African continent
which is the rise in prices for food rise in prices for fertilizers we were clear that we
are not going there as beggars we're not going to ask for a favor to both Ukraine and Russia
we were going there to say open up the Black Sea Channel so that the sea the the the grains
and the fertilizers should go into the World Market so we were not on a begging mission
even s we are in great need as a continent and all that that should go to demonstrate that
Africa is should never be seen as a continent that needs generosity we want to be treated as equals
even in the multilateral institutions we want to be treated as equals and if our Equity is
at a low air but there must be ways in which that can be addressed to us this is very important our
sovereignty is one of the things that we hold on dearly to and we demonstrated that very clearly
to both president zielinski and to President Putin when it came to this issue even as there
were suggestions that yes we can donate this we can donate that we said we want you to release
these grains and fertilizers to the World Market so that the world can trade in these Commodities
and other issues we can handle in a different way I wanted to make that point so that it should be
understood where Africa has evolved up to we want to be key players on the world stage want to be
key players even in the financial markets and in the mdbs now these are the positive things
I do Mr President macron want us to address another issue which to us is a bit of a negative
you will have heard president sisi talking about the 100 billion that was promised in Paris
president Sasson guesto yesterday as well also spoke about it at the dinner
now there is that issue that a number of the commitments that have been made
have not really been fully lived up to but before I get into details let me immediately say that we
recognize the many initiatives that have been put on the table and a number of countries here
have done so Germany has gone out of the way to put a number of initiatives and the U.S has
also done a number of things but there have been times when we felt like we were beggars
I played a key role as chair of the African Union during the covet period we felt like we
were Beggars when it came to vaccines availability when we felt we needed access to vaccines and the
northern hemisphere countries had bought all the vaccines in the world and they were hogging them
and they didn't want to release them at the time when we needed them most and we felt like we were
begging and at times it felt like they were just the droppings from the table that yes we
will give you that and that and let me tell you something that that generated a lot of resentment
we resented that and it got worse when we said we want to manufacture our own vaccines
and when we went to the WTO there was a lot of resistance enormous resistance
and we kept saying what is more important life or profits by your big pharmaceutical companies
and that too I must tell you now generated and deepened that disappointment and resentment on
our part because we felt like life in the northern hemisphere is much more important
than life in the global South and these are issues that need to be addressed and I'm glad that we
are all seated here like this because we've got to get to the heart of these matters and address them
now I come to promises that have been made and Chancellor Schultz was saying
Scots were saying we've got to walk the talk yes we want to see the talk being walked
President yesterday said at the dinner a hundred billion dollars was promised per year
and he was saying I've never seen that and many of us will testify
that that hundred billion dollars has has never really been made available
and this should stand out as something that needs to be addressed because sometimes we sit
at conferences like this and say yes we'll make this available this available and we believe you
we believe you but now the tire must hit the tower we must now see action flowing from that
now I want to then talk about something very practical president raised it yesterday he
said he would be happy if flowing from this Summit we do something very practical
on the infrastructure side having said that 600 million people in Africa do not have electricity
and yet we've got all the resources to generate electricity particularly the mighty Congo River
and that there have been plants to build a number of power stations that will generate in
my calculation up to 70 000 megawatts and he said and I want to speak in support of this proposal
that's to prove that this summits are not summons where we just talk
flowing from the Paris cop as well as others let us now put
money on the table and collectively say we are going to address this Mega project
a mega project which will in the end generate electricity for up to 12 15 African countries
all at one go there we have it let us know if you liked or hated what you had in the comments
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