- “The solidarity amongst us, that is what is going to change the 21st Century and it is going to change the conditions of Africa irreversibly.”
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo says the much predicted century of Africa with people of African descent is going to be a reality soon.
African century is the belief or hope that the 21st century will bring peace, prosperity and cultural revival to Africa.
Among those who have spoken of an African century are South African politicians Thabo Mbeki and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Chevron CEO David J. O’Reilly, US Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and celebrity campaigner Bono.
It has also inspired a radical policy journal – African Century Journal founded in 1999.
Speaking at the official opening of the Kusi Ideas Festival on Friday (10 December) in Accra, Akufo-Addo said, “It’s a great pleasure for me and for all of us here in Accra to welcome our guests from all across the continent and beyond.
“The solidarity amongst us, that is what is going to change the 21st Century and it is going to change the conditions of Africa irreversibly.”
He added, “And we going to also stretch our hands across the Atlantic to our brothers and sisters in the Americas and the Caribean; this is going to be a formidable alliance with people, talents and ingenuity and energy and then the much-predicted century of Africa with people of African descent is going to be a reality.”
The theme for this year’s Kusi Ideas Festival is: “How Africa Transforms After the Virus” and subtitled “Beyond the Return: African Diaspora and New Possibilities”.
About Kusi
Nation Media Group (NMG) launched the Kusi Ideas Festival in 2019 during its 60th-anniversary celebrations. The festival aims to be an “ideas transaction market” for the challenges facing Africa, and for the various solutions and innovations, the continent is undertaking to secure its future in the 21st century.
The kusi is the southerly trade wind that blows across the Indian Ocean between April and mid-September and enabled trade up north along the East African coast and between Asia and Africa for millennia.
Beyond trade, over the centuries, the kusi and other trade winds made possible cultural, intellectual and technological exchanges, and considerably shaped the history of the nations on the east coast of Africa, the eastern hinterland, and the wider Indian Ocean rim.
In the 21st century, the spirits of the trade winds express themselves in new ways. The Indian Ocean is a rich bed for the fibre-optic cables that make the Information Age possible in a large part of Africa.
The first Kusi Ideas Festival was held in Kigali, Rwanda, and was co-hosted by President Paul Kagame.
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