Veep Calls For African Ownership Of Development

Vice President Prof. Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang says Africa must take greater ownership of its development and narratives while building the capacity and institutions needed to solve its own challenges.

The Vice President made the call on August 25, 2026, when she joined African leaders and distinguished guests in Kigali, Rwanda, for the inaugural Africa Mindset Reset Forum organised by the African School of Governance. She disclosed this in a Facebook post.

According to the Vice President, the forum provided a platform for candid discussions on Africa’s history and trajectory.

She participated in a high-level panel alongside the President of Rwanda, H.E. Paul Kagame, former Prime Minister of Ethiopia, H.E. Hailemariam Dessalegn Boshe, and former President of South Africa, H.E. Thabo Mbeki.

In her contribution, Prof. Opoku-Agyemang emphasised the importance of understanding Africa’s history, noting that Pan-Africanism was founded on the conviction that Africans could work together to determine their own future.

She said that conviction must remain at the heart of Africa’s development today, and that the continent must move beyond implementing solutions designed for it towards building the capacity, institutions and expertise needed to address its own challenges.

In that regard, she encouraged the African School of Governance to invest in research grounded in Africa’s realities and to produce solutions relevant to the continent’s development needs.

She added that education must prepare young people not merely to participate in the future, but to equip them with the knowledge, skills and confidence to shape it.

The Vice President said discussions at the forum also focused on the need to confront bottlenecks and bureaucracy that continue to slow progress and to ensure that policies and institutions ultimately improve the lives of the people, particularly those who have had fewer opportunities.

“We must increasingly ask where Africa ought to be, what it will take to get there, and what each of us is prepared to do to make that future possible,” she stated.

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