President John Dramani Mahama has called on African nations to end their reliance on foreign aid and stop the practice of “begging” for support, emphasising the need for self-reliance and collective action to drive the continent’s development.
Speaking in an interview with Joy News on Friday, February 6, following his address to the Zambian Parliament the previous day, President Mahama highlighted the decline in humanitarian assistance and urged African leaders to take responsibility for their own progress.
“Humanitarian assistance has gone down. Africa cannot continue going cup in hand begging for that kind of support. We need to pull ourselves together,” he stated.
The President explained that his speech in Zambia was intentionally designed to rally African leaders around a unified vision for development, drawing inspiration from the principles of the Accra Reset initiative.
“I chose to give a speech that rallies Africa together based on the objectives of the Accra Reset so that we can come together and make collective decisions,” Mahama added.
The Accra Reset, an Africa-led initiative championed by President Mahama, promotes a reimagined approach to global cooperation, focusing on reducing aid dependency, enhancing sovereign capacity, and fostering self-sustaining development across the continent.
President Mahama stressed that Africa’s path forward depends on stronger regional collaboration, particularly in areas such as intra-African trade, natural resource management, and coordinated economic planning.
By uniting in these efforts, he argued, African countries can stabilise their economies, enhance their bargaining power on the global stage, and break free from external dependence.
The President’s remarks come amid his ongoing advocacy for economic sovereignty and unity, as demonstrated during his state visit to Zambia, where he addressed the National Assembly on Thursday, February 5, and signed multiple Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) to boost bilateral cooperation between Ghana and Zambia.
President Mahama reiterated that self-reliance and collective action remain critical for Africa to assert control over its destiny and thrive in an evolving global landscape.