President John Dramani Mahama has declared that Africa will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of the world.
Addressing the General Assembly on Thursday, September 25, President Mahama reflected on Africa’s historical role in global governance and its growing significance for the future.
“Of the 51 Member States involved in the founding of the United Nations in 1945, only four were African: Egypt, Ethiopia, Liberia, and South Africa,” he said.
He explained further: “It is important to point out that the United Nations came into being in the aftermath of World War 2 because of the inability of its precursor, the League of Nations, to avert a large-scale global conflict, which had been its guiding purpose when it was founded in 1920 on the heels of World War 1.”
“Out of the 42 founding member states of the League of Nations, only three were African: Liberia, the Union of South Africa, and Ethiopia. Egypt joined later in 1937. Africa’s overall participation in the organisation’s founding was minimal and relatively unimportant,” President Mahama added.
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He traced Africa’s early exclusion to European colonisation: “That’s because, before all the other talks and meetings, representatives from a group of 14 nations gathered in Berlin for a series of discussions that began in 1884, which led to the partition and formal colonisation of the continent—also called the Scramble for Africa.”
Reflecting on the lessons of history, President Mahama observed: “It has famously been written that ‘past is prologue.’ Well, in the past, the majority of the 54 nations that now comprise Africa were never offered a seat at the table where plans for a new World Order were being drawn.”
Turning to Africa’s future, he said, “As fate would have it, the tables have turned, and Africa’s role in the authorship of whatever is yet to come for this world will be huge, and it will be consequential.”
Highlighting the continent’s demographic potential, he said, “According to this organisation’s own projections, by the year 2050, more than 25% of the world’s population is expected to come from the African continent. Additionally, by 2050, one-third of all young people, aged 15 to 24, will be residing on the African continent.”
“So, you see, the future is African. Allow me to say this once again, a little louder for the people in the back. The future is African!” he concluded.
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