President John Dramani Mahama has said meaningful reparative justice must go beyond acknowledging past injustices to addressing the systems that continue to enable economic exploitation.
Addressing the 81st United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, September 24, he said real repair requires structural transformation of global economic and financial systems that continue to disadvantage developing countries.
He identified unfair global trade, predatory resource extraction, unsustainable debt burdens and the continued export of raw materials from Africa, while value addition and job creation take place elsewhere, as some of the persistent challenges.
“Mr. President, real repair demands structural transformation. It requires dismantling the persistent engines of exploitation, unfair global trade, predatory resource extraction, discriminatory credit ratings, unsustainable debt burdens of the global South, and the continued export of raw materials from Africa while real value addition and job creation occur elsewhere,” he said.
President Mahama further pointed to inequalities in the international financial architecture, particularly the higher cost of borrowing faced by developing countries.
“The same systemic inequalities permeate the international financial architecture. Developing nations and the global South borrow at interest rates that are up to eight times higher than industrialised nations,” he said.
He said addressing these structural inequalities was essential to making reparative justice meaningful for countries in the Global South.
