President Paul Kagame has said that there is an urgent need to disrupt the existing global financial settings to hook in Africa’s interests.
He made the remarks at the ongoing 59th Annual Meeting of the African Development Bank in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.
Kagame participated in the Presidential Dialogue under the theme: “Africa’s Transformation, African Development Bank Group, and Reform of the Global Financial Architecture”.
“There are enormous resources in this world, but inequitably distributed. How do we disrupt the current financial architecture as we have it, so that it includes significantly and visibly the interests of our continent,” Kagame challenged the participants at the meeting.
Kagame said that in a few decades, the only place in this world that will have a growing middle class is Africa. “It is even in the interest of the rest of the world that has marginalized Africa to contribute to the wellbeing of our continent. Because the growth of Africa, based on this middle-class, feeds into the growth of the rest of the world.”
However, Kagame said that Africa cannot wait to be handed this opportunity by anybody else, “We therefore must be on the frontline, fighting for this right, for ourselves but also which contributes to the wellbeing of the rest of the world.”
The meetings (from 27–31 May) brought together heads of state and government, high-level decision makers in Africa, key officials of bilateral and multilateral Development Agencies, leading academics and representatives of non-governmental organizations, civil society, and the private sector.
Kenya and Rwanda have common positions on the need for the reform of the international financial architecture. We hold the view that developing countries should access international financing at the same interest rate as developed nations.
— William Samoei Ruto, PhD (@WilliamsRuto) May 29, 2024
We also advocate long tenure and… pic.twitter.com/lw8ovNHFey
