I would like to warmly congratulate the President on his assumption of his post at the helm of the General Assembly, the Assembly of humankind, and to wish him well in the management of our affairs. I also want to congratulate the Secretary- General on his unanimous reappointment to a second term. The Common Agenda that he has outlined provides us with a powerful framework for effectively tackling global issues in these first decades of the twenty-first century. The presence here in New York of 102 leaders of nations participating in the General Assembly at its seventy-sixth session tells of our resolve to return the world to normalcy. We are not there yet, but we are making considerable progress.
Back in 2017, when I made my first appearance at the General Assembly (see A/72/PV.11) as the newly elected President of Ghana, I said that neither Ghana nor Africa wanted to be scars on anybody’s conscience. I said that we wanted to build economies that are not dependent on charity or handouts, because long and bitter experience has taught us that no matter how generous the charity, we would remain poor. Between 2017 and 2020, Ghana recorded an average growth rate of 7 per cent, among the highest in the world. In 2020, when the global economy and that of sub-Saharan Africa contracted by 3.5 per cent and 2.1 per cent respectively, Ghana was one of the few countries that produced a positive growth rate. That is a testament to
our determination to build a Ghana beyond aid. One year on, although infection rates and deaths in our region are relatively lower, the impact of the virus on economies and livelihoods has been damaging. The latest numbers from the African Development Bank indicate that African economies, which contracted by 2.1 per cent in 2020, have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels. More than 30 million Africans fell into extreme poverty in 2020, and nearly 14 million may do the same in 2021. The social impact has been devastating. More than 103 million African jobs have been lost. Women, who account for 40 per cent of total employment, have been the hardest hit.
When we listen to the scientists, it is evident that vaccination is the way to protect populations and revitalize societies. If we are to vaccinate 70 per cent in the shortest possible time, as is being done elsewhere in the world, it means that some 900 million Africans have to be vaccinated. The African Export-Import Bank structuring of the African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team’s $2 billion acquisition of 400 million Johnson & Johnson vaccines is part of the African Union’s historic coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine development and access strategy. It is a critical milestone in our collective fight against the pandemic in a continent that is bearing the worst brunt of vaccine nationalism. The African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team vaccine programme, which is partly manufactured in South Africa, is the single largest and most far-reaching trade transaction since the entry into force in January this year of the African Continental Free Trade Area. It is eloquent testimony to the benefits of domestic production and pooled procurement in Africa, as envisaged by the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement.
Ghana agrees with the call of the Rome Declaration on global health for voluntary licensing and technology transfers to boost vaccine production. The African Union is working with the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Trade Organization and other global partners to expand its vaccine manufacturing and deployment. We in Ghana have so far received 5 million doses, which have been administered to frontline health workers and those classified as most at risk. Five million is not a figure to be sneered at, particularly when we consider the situation in many other African countries. We are grateful that our efforts to manage the pandemic and vaccine distribution have been recognized and that we have received these amounts of vaccines. We are still hoping to vaccinate 20 million of our people by the end of the year.
One unfortunate development seems to have emerged in recent measures related to entry into some European countries, suggesting that those countries do not recognize Covishield, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured in India. What is intriguing here is the fact that this vaccine was donated to African countries through the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access Facility. The use of vaccines as a tool for immigration control would be a truly retrogressive step.
The last time there was such an upheaval in the world was during the Second World War, and it led to the establishment of a new world order. This Organization, the United Nations, and the other Bretton Woods institutions were created to maintain international peace and security, help rebuild the shattered post-war economy and promote global economic cooperation. Even before the pandemic outbreak, many had concluded that the current structure of global economic cooperation, designed some 77 years ago, had proved inadequate to financing infrastructure and economic transformation in developing countries. Given the incapacity of the global financial system to produce the outcomes needed to finance sustainable development, we need a constructive review. COVID-19 provides us with a great opportunity to rethink global economic cooperation based on the principles of mutuality, equity, sustainability and collective prosperity envisaged in the Sustainable Development Goals.
There is no question that if the famous gathering in San Francisco were to take place today, the Charter of the United Nations would be significantly different. In much the same way, if the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or the WHO were created today, they would be radically different institutions from those that were set up after the war, since many of the countries in today’s world, especially in Africa and the Caribbean, were not present in San Francisco. The pandemic has also shown us that great advances in science and technology notwithstanding, we still have a lot to learn and discover about the human body and about life. So far, in spite of the grisly predictions of dead bodies littering the streets of Africa, and in spite of the fact that we have less access to vaccines than the developed world, Africa seems, mercifully, to have escaped the worst of the COVID-19 death rates — and for that, we thank God.
Ghana would like to share a few thoughts that we believe should form the basis for the new global cooperation. First, we need to strengthen the funding of the existing global health organizations. That should include a greater, more predictable base of multilateral funding for the WHO and the regional centres for disease control, which play a central role in global health security. It will require dedicating an additional 1 per cent of gross domestic product to funding global health. That is an investment in a global public good, not aid.
Secondly, we must develop more resilient finances to build back better and for future preparedness. Across the African continent, revenues have fallen by as much as $150 billion as economies are still reeling from the impact of the pandemic. African Governments have already spent scarce reserves fighting the pandemic and providing social protection to the millions of households affected. Ghana has been advocating for ensuring that innovative financing also addresses structural challenges, beyond responding to immediate fiscal needs, by providing mechanisms to facilitate investments in health infrastructure, technology, the environment and people that will foster resilience and equitable recovery.
The IMF’s unprecedented $650 billion Special Drawing Rights (SDR) allocation offers a unique opportunity to provide additional financial resources to address the vast and surging inequities that the pandemic has revealed, and a crisis to come. Africa’s allocation is some $33 billion. If ever there was a time for an African Marshall Plan, it is now. The SDR infusion should be seized on as a catalytic effort to enable Africa to leapfrog to the next level of human development and ensure sustained global prosperity. African leaders have advocated for a prudent and transparent channelling of 25 to 35 per cent of SDRs — that is, between $160 billion and $250 billion from wealthier countries to vulnerable ones, $100 billion of which should be dedicated to Africa. We welcome the support that has been expressed for some degree of SDR redistribution by the European countries represented at the Africa Summit in France, the IMF, the Group of Seven and the Group of 20 (G-20).
The proceeds of channelled SDRs should fund vaccine acquisition and manufacturing, climate and green investments and a pan-African stability mechanism, like the European Stability Mechanism, designed to safeguard financial stability on the continent. Part of the redistribution should also help fund the recapitalization of the African Development Bank and the African Export-Import Bank to support industrialization, private-sector job creation and the African Continental Free Trade Area initiative.
Thirdly, we must reposition key multilateral organizations and international financial institutions, such as the United Nations, the other Bretton Woods institutions and the G-20, to reflect inclusiveness, support country investments in global public goods and ensure fast-tracked financial support to build back better and prepare for future pandemics. For instance, the key to the G-20’s effectiveness is that it achieves representative coverage of the global population and economy with a sufficiently diversified number of leaders at the table to enable speed and flexibility in deliberation and decision-making. Admitting the African Union to an expanded Group of 21 would have the same galvanizing effect within Africa that the European Union’s participation in the G-20 has within Europe, strengthening policy coordination and coherence across the 54 African economies. With the African Union at the table, the Group would suddenly have representation for an additional 54 countries, 1.3 billion people and $2.3 trillion in output. That extraordinary increase in representation would add just one seat to the table and about 10 minutes to the discussion. However, it would redefine global policy coordination to enable a more prosperous, inclusive and sustainable world to emerge.
Fourthly, we in Africa are as committed as any to the fight against climate change. We believe, however, that the fight can be better advanced if we can maintain a crucial balance between economic, political and environmental imperatives — positions that we will be articulating in Glasgow at the twenty-sixth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which will form part of the new global compact.
Lastly, now more than ever, we must defend democracy, constitutional rule and human rights in the world. In the past 24 months, we have witnessed assaults on democracy around the world, sometimes even in developed countries where we had assumed that a consensus on a democratic form of Government was established.
In West Africa, recent events in Mali and Guinea have undermined democratic governance in our region.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the regional body of whose Authority of Heads of State and Government I have the honour to be the current Chair, is unreservedly committed to maintaining democratic Governments in the ECOWAS community. That is why both Guinea and Mali, founding members of the Community, have been suspended from its organization pending their restoration of democratic governance. We welcome the support of the United Nations for the measures taken. ECOWAS has given Guinea six months to restore democratic governance and requested the immediate release of President Alpha Conde. On my visit to Conakry last Friday, the military leaders indicated their willingness to see to his imminent release, and it is our hope that they will keep to their word. The Authority has also made it clear to the military Government in Mali that it is not prepared to negotiate an extension to the February deadline for the holding of democratic elections, since with political will, the essential steps to be taken can be effective within the ECOWAS-sanctioned timetable. It is better that a Government with a democratic mandate be in place as soon as possible in order to implement the necessary reforms for the future stability and growth of Mali, thereby enhancing capacity for the all-important fight against terrorism in Mali and the wider Sahel.
We in Ghana are highly resolved to continue to defend democracy and constitutional rule and uphold human rights. We will work to strengthen the institutions that support democracy in our country and our region. We will continue to support the United Nations and other international organizations to help remind us that indeed, no man is an island entire of itself.