Vice president urges leaders to focus on long-term goals

Vice President K.B. Amissah-Arthur has called on African government’s to pursue the longterm interest of their people.

Mr Amissah-Arthur made the call when he addressed the Meles Zenawi Symposium on Development in Kigali, Rwanda on Friday.

Inspired by the late Ethiopian Prime Minister’s commitment to the state’s prominent role in building robust accountable institutions and facilitating rapid sustainable development, the symposium aims at fostering rigorous intellectual debate on issues related to development.

Over 200 participants from all over Africa, including Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame and Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn attended the symposium, which was on the theme “African Democratic Developmental State”.

Addressing participants, Vice President Amissah-Arthur observed that the four-year term mandate conferred by many democracies on the continent, in the short-term, makes governments that do not want to be unpopular step back from taking the tough decisions that are necessary for the progress of the society.

He said leaders must not only prioritise but they must also build and develop institutional systems that will allow for those priorities to continue even after a government has left office.

Mr Amissah-Arthur, who urged leaders to continue to find home-grown solutions to peculiar problems, said regional integration must also continue to be high on the agenda.