Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has observed that Africa’s continuous reliance on primary commodities, is affecting its economic growth, adding the situation is forcing many African governments to manage crises due to external shocks.
Speaking at the Harvard University’s Africa Development Conference in the United States over the weekend, Dr Bawumia, demanded that African countries must shift from raw material production to value addition and embrace the 4th Industrial Revolution.
This he said, will need a break from the impossibility mindset, which he said is a major hindrance to Africa’s forward march.
“The reliance on primary commodities has made African countries vulnerable to external shocks. As a result, the focus of economic management by successive African governments since independence has been crisis management as a result of factors such as an increase in oil prices, collapse in commodity prices, debt unsustainability, macro-instability and so on.
“Governments have by and large not focused on the underlying system that underpins economic activities and economic growth. Our focus has always been on managing crisis of one nature or the other,” the Vice President said.
Dr Bawumia further urged, “Our generation needs to break the shackles of the impossibility mindset and embrace the mindset of possibility! It is time for us to figure out the best ways to be masters of our destiny, to chart our own path and develop on our own terms. It is possible!”
Dr Bawumia urged Africa to eschew the mindset of impossibility and embrace a mindset of possibility, for the African continent to get to the levels of developed countries.
Dr Bawumia identified the continuous reliance on ineffective systems in Africa as the bane of the continent’s economic growth and development, adding that the status quo remains because the continent has, for many years, not broken the “shackles of impossibility mindsets”.
“The truth is that while African countries are politically free, we still have a mindset that is shackled by the experience of 500 years of slavery and colonialism,” Dr. Bawumia said.
“For the longest time, we have not believed in ourselves. The dominant mindset is one of impossibility.”
Addressing issues stunting the economic growth of the African continent, Dr. Bawumia said the over-reliance on raw materials instead of human capital development, as well as lack of effective systems such as identity system, property addressing system, huge financial exclusion and manual delivery of public services are some of the major contributory factors to Africa’s stunted progress.
To address these, Dr Bawumia noted, Africa must embrace the 4th Industrial Revolution to address these basic system challenges, and more importantly, break the impossibility mindset, which he said is a major hindrance to Africa’s forward march.
Back home in Ghana, Dr Bawumia, has spearheaded Ghana’s successful digitalization drive to address some of the basic system challenges he spoke about at the Conference.
He has, however, faced his own challenges of “impossibility mindsets,” and has often spoken about how pessimists attempted to impede and discourage many of the successful digital innovations he led, as not possible to implement.
The Harvard Africa Development Conference brings together high-level participants to discuss issues relating to the development of the African continent.
Vice President Bawumia, delivered the keynote address as the Guest of Honour.
