Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – President of the Republic of Ghana, H.E. John Dramani Mahama, has called for innovative and modern approaches to ensure that African countries take full ownership of their natural resources for the benefit of their people.
According to him, the time has come for Africa to leverage its comparative advantages and boldly exploit them for economic growth.
“I think that we must look at the comparative advantages we have as Africa and unashamedly exploit those advantages,” he said.
Speaking at the Africa Business Forum 2025 on Monday, February 17, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, President Mahama emphasized that Africa’s strengths lie in agriculture, agribusiness, and its vast natural resource wealth.
“And I can see that in the place of agriculture and agribusiness. I can see it in the area of our natural resource endowment,” he said.
The forum, organized by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, focused on the theme: “Moving from Potential to Prosperity: Activating Africa’s Regional Value Chain.”
Indigenizing Africa’s Natural Resources
President Mahama highlighted the need for Africa to indigenize its natural resources, stressing that past challenges—such as lack of capital and technology—are no longer barriers.
“How are we indigenizing these natural resources? In the past, we didn’t have capital, we didn’t have the technology, and so large multinational companies came into huge concessions, and they exploited it to their advantage. A lot of the benefits from the exploitation of our natural resources went to the metropolitan capitals,” he stated.
He noted that capital and technology are now readily available for African countries to take control of their resources, citing Ghana’s mining industry as an example.
“Today the capital is available if you want it and you look for it. Today the technology is available. We have situations in Ghana where in the gold mining industry the bulk of the mining actually is done by indigenous companies. You find a multinational company only where the gold is being poured,” he said.
President Mahama further stressed the need for Africa to complete the value chain, ensuring that all aspects of resource extraction and processing benefit the continent.
“And so if we do all the mining, we do the drilling, we do the blasting, we do the crushing, we fill the crushing plants—I mean, we can do the last mile of also pouring the gold and making sure that the benefits of that gold come to our country,” he added.
Time to Process Cocoa Locally
Beyond mining, President Mahama pointed out that the cocoa sector faces a similar challenge, where Africa has historically exported raw cocoa beans instead of processing them locally to create jobs and boost the economy.
“The same with cocoa. We’ve exported cocoa beans for God knows how many years, and still we export cocoa beans. There’s some processing capacity—it’s about 30 percent. We have the capacity to process almost 500,000 tons of cocoa, but we’re not processing that much. We’re processing at about 200,000 tons because the cocoa board that needs to be restructured believes that it gets immediate foreign exchange when the beans are traded and we sell for it. And so they get the money in advance before we even export one bean,” he said.
He emphasized that increasing local processing will directly create employment opportunities for Africa’s growing youth population.
“But bringing the value addition home will be bringing jobs back so that our young people can get jobs to do, especially by putting that processing in the areas where the cocoa is grown,” he said.
Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire’s Joint Initiative
President Mahama welcomed the Ghana-Côte d’Ivoire partnership aimed at coordinating cocoa production, processing, and value addition. He noted that the two nations together produce about 80% of the world’s cocoa and must leverage this dominance to benefit their economies.
“And that’s why we’re excited about the initiative between Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire because together we produce about 80% of the world’s cocoa. And so if we coordinate and work together, not only in terms of improving production but also in terms of processing and bringing processing up to that chocolate, that last chocolate home, we’ll create more jobs for our young people.
“Because we all recognize that with a growing youth population, yes, it’s an advantage for Africa. But if we’re not creating opportunities for these young people, then it becomes a ticking time bomb,” he warned.
Story by: Emmanuel Romeo Tetteh (#RomeoWrites
) : Ahotoronline.com | Ghana 
