Pan-African Conference of moral
re-armament opens
Accra (Greater Accra) 23 May 2003 - President John Kufuor on Thursday stressed the need for Africans to work hard and turn round the bad image created by civil and ethnic wars on the continent to ensure its sustainable development.
He said the independence of the African state, which stood for freedom and justice, had turned the continent into strife, tribal and civil wars, diseases such as HIV/AIDS and other social vices.
President Kufuor, who said this in a speech read for him during the opening ceremony of the Pan-African Re-armament Conference in Accra, said "we have to see each other as an instrument of change rather than instruments of destruction".
The Moral Re-armament, Ghana (MRG), a non-governmental organisation organised the conference for over 100 participants from Africa, Europe and the United States of America to brainstorm on "Good Governance In Africa".
The five-day conference co-sponsored by the United Nations was under the theme: "Africa In Search Of Good Governance." President Kufuor said the search for good governance was an essential tool in any programme of sustainable development because it established the clear linkages between democracy, economic development and social progress.
Prof Emeritus, the Most Reverend K. A. Dickson, President of All African Conference of Churches, said the story of Africa had been one of such socio-economic, political and cultural short-sightedness, which had baffled and caused much pain and suffering to many Africans.
He said though there had been tremendous advances made in education, this notwithstanding, life had been difficult for the continent and its people because of unlevelled playing field for world trade, which he said, was not Africa's own making.
"The governments and people of Africa hanker after development, and indeed valiant efforts have been made from time to time to go beyond growth to development," he said, and called for mechanisms to engender faith in the people's own ability to move forward in dignity.
Mrs Leonora Kyerematen, Chairperson of Anti-War Coalition of Ghana, said the moral uprightness of African Leaders -the secular and temporal, rooted in the transforming power of God, should be the cornerstone of the reconstruction of the continent.
She said; "for when a society does not have a principled reference for the ethnical and moral conduct of its citizens, it succumbs to base desires."
Mrs Kyerematen said lack of adherence to clear moral imperatives had led to the increase in promiscuity, crime, social insecurity, unemployment, corruption, hardship and family disintegration.
These, she said, had weakened the continent's resolve towards development, poverty reduction and wealth creation. Dr Robert Aboagye-Mensah, General Secretary, Christian Council of Ghana, said a sustained democracy that could promote good governance could only be achieved where the foundation of governance was based on sound moral values such as justice.
"A continent, bedevilled with strife, civil war and poverty, needs to look at itself more sincerely, and to honestly and do what is true, noble, pure, lovely and whatever is admirable to change its situation," he said.
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