Kagame was speaking yesterday in Accra, Ghana, where he is attending the African Transformation Forum.
“Today I speak as President of my country but I also wear the hat of AU Chairperson. But to me it is more than that because everything happening on the continent is intertwined and it is important that we highlight things that need to be done that benefit us all,” he said.
Kagame said that to talk about transformation is to talk about people and resources that need to be put to good use.
“We are talking about the management of these resource, the political will and process that must accompany all these actions for us to be where we want to be. It is evident that Africa has all kinds of resources for us to move fast if we want to and there is no excuse, we haven’t found any justification that says Africa has an abundance of natural resources and yet continues to be poor decade after decade,” he highlighted.
“There is no excuse for us to be like this. Therefore the purpose of these discussions is to identify what is it that is critical and examine the mistakes we make that need to be corrected in order for us to move forward and prosper as a continent,” Kagame said.
Kagame mentioned that key components to transformation lie primarily in investing in people, in partnerships between the private and public sector and the policies that have been put in place to help achieve transformation of a continent.
“One thing we must all understand is that it is not just about understanding the problem but how effectively you execute it. We all share a common understanding of these are priorities but execution is where the problem lies and this is a mindset issue,” he noted.
According to Kagame, if the rest of the world is shunning Africa and say they want to be more inward looking, it is a reminder to Africans that the closer they come together and the more intra Africa trade they engage in, the better off they are and the failure to do so bears consequences.
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