welcome to the african leadership series where we bring you great inspirational speeches of african
leaders affecting your ability to produce food affecting your ability to buy food
because the costs continue to rise and now that it is compounded by the realities of the pandemic
and the realities of the war in ukraine
we expect regressively that there will be difficult times that there will be increases
in prices continuing and i say to you the people of ghana that in the same way that we have in
barbados to explain to our people that the cost of living that now chokes so many of our people
is regrettably not national but global in nature for we only need to look at the impact that will
be happening soon as we get our next shipments of oil as we get our next shipments of food as we get
our ability to negotiate whether we can in fact get the shipping arrangements to
receive that which we want to buy but we know that we come from a proud and resilient people
and not even the combination of the pandemic and the climate crisis
and the consequences of aggression in repair ukraine can cause us to bow and lose focus yes the
times will be hard but our ancestors have shown us that even in hard times we can rise above this
and hold firm to the view that we are a resilient and dominant people capable of moving strong ahead
it is for that reason mr president that when we look at the global architecture
and the lack of fairness in the structure of it we too echo your own cause and that of others
that the african union should be given a chance to become part of the global leadership
if it is to be legitimate and if it is to be morally accepted by us all
the g20 cannot remain 20 the g20 must become the g21 for we know that in the african union
you constitute the fifth largest economy in the world with just under three trillion
in production on an annual basis and we know that the 1.3 billion people of this continent actually
have the greatest demographic dividend to you be reached in the 21st century with the largest
percentage of young people on the planet earth today to be found on the continent of africa
if there is to be a future for these young people in africa
then that future must be shaped not just by those who tell us what to do but must also be shared by
those who experience what it is to provide for the 1.3 billion people on this continent
my friends we stand in solidarity and in unity with you on these great issues
and i can do no better than to quote your own founder leader in his wise words
as he addressed the oil summit in may of 1963 when your president said and i quote
do we have any other weapon against this design but our unity is not our unity essential
to guard our own freedom as well as to win freedom for our oppressed brothers
the freedom fighters is it not unity alone that can well listen to an effective force
capable of creating our own progress and making a valuable contribution to world peace we must stand
united now more than ever and the cause to remove a member of the p5 this week only serve to remind
us of the absolute injustice and inequity of the p5 the permanent five in the security council
in the first place and that is why we say there can be no first-class or second-class nations
of the world it came to a head an absolute head when the one that was given the power to veto
literally this week ensured that that veto literally made the united nations
almost useless in its capacity to save the people of ukraine as they face down the weapons of russia
we say today that it is not only there that there must be change we ask the world to also recognize
that the international financial institutions cannot accept
that two countries namely greece and ghana can go to the market to borrow money have the same credit
rating but greece must be able to borrow and regrettably at a fraction of what ghana must now
pay for the cost of capital that is and cannot be part of a fair and just world in the 21st century
and why must it change because in a very real sense even though we settled the individual rights
to protect each and every one of us at the formation of the united nations we preserved
an old colonial order of empires having the right to determine what the global community
should look like we now know that it does not work and we now know that the time has come to
work together to change it for the betterment of the nations of the world all together yes
but in particular for the betterment of the people of our nations who were suppressed and
colonized regrettably for too long my friends i ask us also to recognize that in today's world
technology makes geography and size almost irrelevant and therefore it gives us that unique
opportunity and certainly as we have done in the caribbean and in my own country to assert that the
time has come to reclaim our atlantic destiny that the time has come for strong strategic leadership
it is emotional we are conscious that those who put your family
in those castles those poorer houses whether here or in goray
did it because they simply did not see you hear you or care for you and did it
solely for the purpose of profit and solely for the purpose of power
and dominion it is regrettable that those same motives are showing themselves on the landscape of
the world today and if ever there is a people who can speak out against it with a moral authority
if ever there is the capacity for global moral strategic leadership
mr president it must come from those of us who are affected on both sides of the atlantic
those of you who lost brothers and sisters and those of us whose great-grandparents and
great-great-grandparents suffered the indignity of being treated less than human we have come to
this point today to say to these young people who sit opposite me that it must never happen again
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