Global leaders have been urged by President Nana Akufo Addo to make sure that the West’s advancement does not come at the continuous expense of Africa and other impoverished regions of the world.

Speaking on Friday, November 10, 2023, at the sixth Paris Peace Forum in France, President Akufo-Addo called attention to the unfair situation and asked, to thunderous applause, if prosperity in Europe and the West, including parts of Asia, must be based on poverty in the rest of the world, particularly in Africa.

In order for “we to contemplate a world whereby all of us can live together on this planet in relative comfort, and that some people will not live in super comfort and other people in super poverty,” he asked the audience to think about the necessity of coexisting. He also stated that “that challenge to the thinking and mindset of people, is something that in our generation we have to address.”

He went on, “Is it possible for us to create a world where we can all coexist on this planet with some degree of ease? The world’s resources are abundant; wealth and technology have never been more plentiful. The development we are witnessing in many regions of the world raises the question of whether these developments must stay there or if they can become a universal and global phenomenon.

“These are some of the matters that we are going to have to look at, because if we are going to solve these multifaceted problems, and put ourselves in a position to hand over to the next generation and succeeding generations, a more constructive and better world, we have to deal with these questions,” Akufo-Addo hinted, given that the pursuit of peace is primarily predicated on shaping long-standing imbalances across the globe.

He went on to say that there are many problems facing the world, and that many solutions are also needed. He emphasized that the most basic and long-standing problem at the center of all of these solutions is money.

“I think a lot of our energies are looking at how we can frame a new arrangement where the multilateral institutions like the Bank, like the Fund, can play in the process of mobilizing the greater resources that the world needs for its development,” he said. “Access to capital and money doesn’t change, from century to century, generation to generation.”

The President has been talking about a lot of different topics, such as climate action, and he has defended Africa’s limited position after learning that some of its most vital resources can no longer be used for the continent’s development.