By: Mercy Darko
Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has challenged Africa to eschew the mindset of impossibility and embrace a mindset of possibility, for the African Continent to get to the levels of developed countries.
Addressing participants of Harvard University’s Africa Development Conference in the United States over the weekend, Vice President Bawumia said the continuous reliance of ineffective systems in Africa is the bane of the the Continent’s economic growth and development adding that the continent is also faced with the lack of data and transparent systems to transform their economies.
He reiterated the need for the Continent to have a positive mindset, while putting in place systems to bring the needed change.
Addressing issues stunting the economic growth of the African continent, Dr. Bawumia said the over reliance on raw materials instead of human capital development, as well as lack of effective systems are some of the major contributory factors to Africa’s stunted progress. To address these, Dr. Bawumia noted, Africa must embrace the 4th Industrial Revolution to address these basic systemic challenges, and more importantly, break the impossibility mindset, which he said is a major hindrance to Africa’s forward March.
According to him, most countries in the African continent take decisions in the governance and management of their economies without any proper and consolidated data. This he noted has ”resulted in economic policies and decisions not realising the expected outcomes”.
”It is in this light that the government took the decision to transform the economy by leveraging on technological innovations as a means to leapfrog the development process, overcome legacy problems, and improve both economic and public sector governance”.
Delving into the key areas of transformation that he noted have been critical to Ghana’s digitisation revolution, Dr Bawumia said the introduction of a biometric national identification system in Ghana has been a ”game-changer in several ways with more than 17 million people enrolled in the secured national database”.
The Harvard Africa Development Conference, brings together high level participants to discuss issues relating to the development of the African Continent.
Vice President Bawumia delivered the keynote address as the Guest of Honour.
