President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has reiterated the urgent need for the international financial structure to be reformed to meet the needs of developing and emerging economies.

He argued that the current structure was skewed significantly against developing and emerging economies such as Ghana.

President Akufo-Addo made the urgent call when he addressed the second day of the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, September 21, 2022.

According to the President, the financial markets had been set up to operate on rules designed for the benefit of the rich and powerful nations.

President Akufo-Addo continued that, the avenues opened to powerful nations to enable them to take measures that would ease pressures on their economies are closed to small nations.

He further said the structure, from its prejudiced tags, denied Africa access to cheaper borrowing and pushed the continent deeper into debt.

President Akufo-Addo again stated that the Russia-Ukraine war has had an impact on the economies of African countries. He also recounted the negative impact of the coronavirus pandemic on African economies including Ghana

He told the Assembly that the war broke out just when Ghana and other African countries were trying to get out of the pandemic and added that every bullet, every bomb that hits Ukraine hits Africans’ pockets directly.

President Nana Akufo-Addo further warned the global community of the growing threat of terrorist activities in West Africa.

He noted that terrorist activities have also had a debilitating effect on democracies in the sub-region since all of Ghana’s direct neighbors have suffered terrorist attacks and have had to battle insurgents in the last decade.

The President explained that the terrorist pressure has provided a pretext for the unhappy reappearance of military rule in three of the 15-member ECOWAS Community and stressed that this is a trend the sub-region is determined to reverse so that the ECOWAS space remains a democratic one.