He said this at the just-ended Bastille Day celebration at the France Embassy. Every year, France commemorates the Bastille Day with fireworks, music, and a lavish military parade down the Champs-Élysées in front of the president, a slew of elected officials, and frequently a visiting head of state.
The celebration honours two significant historical occurrences in France. It is honored in remembrance of the brutal Bourbon reign when a mob entered the Bastille to demand weapons and ammunition.
And when the guards resisted, the mob took control of the jail and freed the seven prisoners it was housing. The Bastille’s capture marked the start of the French Revolution, and as a result, it came to represent the fall of the ancient regime.
“Our partnership aims to support Ghana’s development priorities in terms of global issues. I recently had the honour of presenting the Embassy’s Action Plan for 2023-2026 to the French authorities. This action plan is in line with the new relationship that France wishes to forge with the African continent and particularly with Ghana, which President Macron announced in his speech in Ouagadougou in 2017 and further reiterated, on February 28,”
“President Emmanuel Macron is urging us to practice a diplomacy of attentive and active listening in Africa; a diplomacy that does not seek to instruct but rather builds side-by-side with our African partners to support African solutions, created by Africa and for Africa itself,” His Excellency said this in his speech.
At the event, His Excellency Aniambossou highlighted the key transformational agenda shared with Ghana towards supporting its development priorities, especially in terms of global issues targeting the youth, culture, and sports.
“The aim is to equip young Ghanaian entrepreneurs with the means to develop their activities in the creative and cultural fields, for job and wealth creation (an example is with copyright). A great opportunity to support young people is also present in the Ghana Olympics project which seeks to support the country in the run-up to the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2024,”
“The many partnerships between Ghanaian and French institutions in research and higher education are equally remarkable. By targeting innovation, we’re targeting youth and job creation. In this regard, I’d like to highlight the new exchange program, which will enable even more Ghanaians to study in France, and French students to come and study in Ghana. This exchange program also includes voluntary work, with young people volunteering for a few months in Ghana or France. We will soon present a proposal aimed 5 at boosting this voluntary work as part of the 2019 agreement with the Ghanaian authorities,” he added.
Not forgetting the impacts of climate change on Ghana’s economy, His Excellency further stated their agenda for helping Ghana to deal with climate change as part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“Last but not least are the Sustainable Development Goals, which concern both France and Ghana. The fight against climate change is first and foremost an obligation for the so-called countries of the North, which are largely responsible for the pollution that unfairly impacts the countries of the South. The recent Paris Summit on the New Financial Partnership is part of this approach.”
Honorable Yaw Safo-Marfo, a senior presidential advisor to the Akufo-Addo administration, who also graced the event, speaking on behalf of President Akufo-Addo admitted Ghana’s relationship with France over the years through trading, culture exchanges, education, security, and many more.
“Today, we partner in the areas of trade, cultural exchange, security, education, and health, just to mention a few. The leaders of our two countries have over the years, closely collaborated on issues both at the bilateral and multilateral levels, aimed at adding momentum to this collaboration,”
Again, Honorable Marfo spoke about the impacts of President Akufo-Addo’s visit to France to participate in the Summit on “A New Global Financing Pact” organised under the auspices of His Excellency Emmanuel Macron with the objective of laying the foundations for a new global financing architecture beyond the Bretton Woods system to address climate change, the biodiversity crisis and development challenges.
“Indeed, the Summit afforded Ghana and other developing countries the opportunity to mobilise with one voice and bring the developing world’s attention to the need for reforming the global financial system and directing significant 4/8 financial resources towards adaptation and mitigation action that keeps the world below the 1.5-degree Celsius threshold,” he added.
Honorable Yaw Safo-Marfo was optimistic about the conclusions reached during the Summit that would be implemented to address issues pertaining to access to finance by vulnerable countries like Ghana in the near future and also quoted the words of President Akufo-Addo at the France Summit.
“We want sustainable financial reforms that take into account the everyday realities of climate change. Should we fail to achieve any of these outcomes we will only be setting ourselves and our economies up for failure. This, we cannot afford.” Honorable Safo-Marfo quoted President Akufo-Addo.
