 So, thank you for this excellent gift. And I'm also grateful to the organizers of this year's International Conference of Sustainable Development, especially to Jeffrey Sacks, the director of the Center for Sustainable Development of the Earth Institute of Columbia University for the opportunity and the invitation to address this gathering. It is an honor to be amongst you this morning as we share ideas and create also a platform for deliberations on the world in 2050, looking ahead for sustainable development. Upon my assumption of the high office of president of the Republic of Ghana in January this year, the very first appointment thrust on my modest shoulders was from the new secretary general of the United Nations, Antonio Gutierrez. He appointed me co-chair of the UN Sustainable Development Goals Advocates Group of Eminent Personalities in succession to my predecessor, his excellent John Romani Mohama. It is a mark of trust in Ghana's leaders which honors the Ghanaian people and for which they are grateful. My duty and that of all the members of the Advocates Group is to help mobilize political support for the realization of the 17 sustainable development goals which include ending poverty and hunger, improving health and education, making cities more sustainable, combating climate change and protecting oceans and forests. All of these are aimed at promoting global development that leaves no one behind. It is for this reason that I commend all the actors of the Earth Institute for their role in helping shape the global conversation on sustainable development. Through the development of policy and practical solutions aimed at drawing the attention of the world on how best we can address issues that border on sustainable development across the world. It is a most noble endeavor and I wish you the very best. In promoting global development that leaves no one behind, we on the continent of Africa have also fashioned our strategic framework for the socio-economic transformation of Africa, AU Agenda 2063, whose goals are in tandem with those of the SDGs Agenda 2030. Agenda 2063 sees to build a progressive and prosperous Africa within the next 50 years. Several countries on the continent, including my own of Ghana, are thus taking concrete steps towards converting the 17 SDGs into concrete outcomes for their peoples with the conviction that they cannot expect others to do it for them. Many of us felt a sense of guilt and shame when the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said, Africa is a scar on the conscience of the world. We can and must build Africa on a strong foundation of the ability and industry of our citizens and Africa that exemplifies the true spirit of its peoples working towards a common goal of better existence. In so saying, we recognize that the implementation of the SDGs on the continent will require all the resources we can summon. We're told that the implementation of the SDGs Agenda could cost between $3.5 trillion to $5 trillion million per year. With the news that, for example, aid to Africa will be cut significantly by the current US administration, Africa must be efficient and effective, not only in mobilizing resources, but also looking beyond the benevolence of others to finance implementation of the SDGs Agenda. We are a continent reliant on foreign aid, despite economic growth in parts of Africa significantly outpacing the global average. Truth be told, the full implementation of the SDGs in Africa cannot be done with a mindset of dependence. This has to change and it begins with identifying our priorities and implementing them. Our first priority must be to change the structures of the economies on the continent, which are dependent largely on the production and export of raw materials. It is this reliance on raw materials that feeds our dependence on foreign aid and subjects us to the politics of the West. We cannot be doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. Africa needs to transform stagnant, jobless economies, built on the export of raw materials and unrefined goods to value added economies that provide jobs, to build strong middle-class societies and lift the masses of our people out of dire poverty. Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire, for example, account for more than 60% of the world's cocoa output. Ghana earned $2 billion from the sale of cocoa beans in 2015 and Côte d'Ivoire, $3.75 billion, amounting together to $5.75 billion United States dollars. And yet, the chocolate market was worth a little over $100 billion in 2015. It means that the farmers who, through their sweat and toil, produce 60% plus of the world's cocoa and 5.75% of the global value of their activity. This is not right and should not and cannot continue. We certainly cannot finance the vision of building sustainable development on the continent with such scenarios. There can be no future prosperity for our peoples in the short, medium, or long term if we continue to maintain economic structures that are dependent on the production and export of raw materials. We must add value to our resources and we must industrialize. Unless we do so, we cannot finance on our own the full implementation of the SDGs. The agenda surely has to be in Africa beyond age. On my part, over the last eight months, the length of stay of my government in office, we have introduced measures to stimulate the private sector through the introduction of a monetary policy that is stabilizing the currency, reducing interest rates, and reducing significantly the cost of borrowing in addition to a raft of tax cuts to bring relief to and encourage businesses. We have begun to act on the fundamentals of our economy resulting in the growing stability of the macro economy. These interventions are intended to shift the focus of Ghana's economy from an emphasis on taxation to an emphasis on production and hopefully will make Ghanaian businesses very competitive in West Africa and beyond. It is the competitiveness of our enterprises, particularly in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors that will determine our capacity to create wealth for our youth and women and wealth in our society and the sustainable development of the country. The competitiveness of Ghana's private sector is key to addressing issues of inclusion, economic development and growth of Ghana. That is the way to building a self-reliant Ghana with a strong economy capable of generating jobs and prosperity for the mass of our people. This process of economic and industrial transformation has to go along with ensuring that the most basic elements of social justice are met so that we can create a society of opportunities and incentives. We must make quality basic education, i.e. education from kindergarten through to secondary school, accessible to all of Ghana's indeed Africa's children. Hence our policy in Ghana of free secondary education in our public schools, the policy I launched on 12 September at the beginning of this academic term. Over the last four years, an average of 100,000 students each year dropped out of school because they could not take their places in senior high school because of the high cost of fees. It means that over the next decade, one million students will not have had access to senior high school education. This year, as a result of the policy, the figure has reduced to 36,000, all of whom will be eligible to reset the qualifying exam nation to join, hopefully, the stream of further education. Education for all of Ghana's children. By 2030, the target date for the implementation of SDG-4, which ensures inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning is clearly within reach. Equally, accessible healthcare to all our citizens must be an important priority of governments on the continent. And you can see some of the work that we're doing in Ghana in this regard. It is also the rationale for our national health insurance scheme, the great social legacy of the outstanding Ghanaian statesman, his Excellency, John Ajikoum Koufor, former president of the Republic, in whose government I had the privilege of serving as foreign minister. The scheme has undergone severe challenges since his departure, almost to the point of collapse. But I'm fully committed to restoring it back to rude health. Within seven months, by doing of honest and prudent management, the depth of 1.2 billion CDs, approximately 300 million United States dollars, which my government inherited and which was crippling the operation of the scheme has reduced by 560 million, approximately 140 million United States dollars. We will settle the remainder of the debt within 12 months. In the meantime, payments to service providers are now current so that the business insurance is now working effectively again. Universal healthcare and coverage, SDG-3, is clearly also within reach. In a similar vein, we need to build an Africa that is able to look after her peoples through intelligent management of the resources with which her people have been endowed and embark on a new path. This path offers a new Africa. It is an Africa that will be defined by integrity, sovereignty, common belief, discipline, and shared values. It is one way we aim to be masters of our own destiny and establish an Africa beyond age. An important tool to that end has to be the promotion of liberalization of trade amongst African countries. Researchers show that countries or group of countries with the largest share of world trade are located within regions with the highest share of intra-regional trade. Trade between African nations remains low compared to other parts of the world. For example, in the year 2000, intra-regional trade accounted for 10% of Africa's total trade and increased marginally to 11% in 2015. Trading amongst members of the European Union, on the other hand, amounted to 70% in 2015. With Africa's population set to reach some 2 billion people in 20 years' time from its current figure of 1.2 billion, an African common market will present immense opportunities to bring prosperity to the continent with hard work, enterprise, and creativity. Hence the importance of the success of the continental free trade area. A working common continental market has to be a very fundamental objective of all peoples and governments on the continent. To guarantee an Africa beyond aid, Africa must breed a new generation of leaders. Leaders who are committed to governing their peoples according to the rule of law, respect for individual liberties and human rights, and the principles of democratic accountability. Leaders who are looking past commodities to position their countries in the global marketplace. Leaders who are determined to free their peoples from a mindset of dependence, aid, charity, and handouts. Leaders who are bent on mobilizing Africa's only measurable resources to resolve Africa's problems. Leaders who recognize the connectedness of their peoples and economies to those of their neighbors. This new generation of African leaders must help bring dignity and prosperity to our continent and its peoples. There are many amongst us who cannot accept that it is only Asians who can engineer their transition from poverty to prosperity in a generation. We're determined to emulate that in our generation in Africa and ensure that succeeding generations of Africans will be neither victims nor pawns of the international economic order. Indeed, the project should be Africa beyond aid. Let it serve as the impetus for reshaping the continent and charting a new path of growth and development in freedom which will lift the long-suffering African masses out of poverty into the realms of prosperity and dignified existence. Once again, I thank you sincerely for making me a part of this conversation. Thank you, and may God bless us all. So, Mr. President, co-chair of the SDG Advocates, president of Ghana, which role keeps you up at night? Ha, ha, ha! I think it's all part and parcel of the same. All of them have to keep me up at night. There's a whole, there's such a huge amount of work to be done, obviously, for my own country and for the rest of the continent. Because I see my role as co-chair of the SDGs not just as confined specifically to Africa, but having the emphasis on the mobilization of the African support for realizing the goal. So that's the way I see how I fit in. You know, there are 17 people, a very diverse group of people. My co-chair is the prime minister of Norway. Then there are people from the world of business, the world of the arts, public service. Who's doing the best job so far? Well, yesterday's meeting tells me that we're all making an effort. Hopefully, some of the decisions that were taken yesterday about the regularity of our meetings, the emphasis that we have to place on specific issues will scale up the quality of the work that we're doing as advocates. It's important. At the end of the day, I know for a lot of people, because people said at the time the SDGs were adopted that it's far too ambitious, it's not possible, et cetera. But really, what are we talking about? We're talking about things that if we are able to do it, we'll clearly give us a better planet, a safer planet, a planet of greater equity, a planet that will allow us to live on it without some of the extraordinary tensions and horrors and tragedies that are occurring today. And that recognition for me is important because there's a tendency perhaps for people in this part of the world, for instance, to think that some are rather the grave issues of the world don't concern them because they have a more elevated material standard of living. But there's something that struck me very vividly, and I want to talk about it on Thursday when I addressed the United Nations, coming here. There were, on the television screens and Ghana and everything was inundated with pictures of floods in Houston, in Texas, in Nepal, in Bangladesh, in India, in Niger, in Nihame. And it's the same scenes of these huge torrential rains and floods displacing lots and lots and lots of people. And suddenly recognizing that even the highest level of material civilization that you find in a city like Houston, which is one of the most modern in cities in America, could not insulate them from the force of later, which we saw also happening at the same time in a capital like Nihame, the capital of Niger, which is the Sahel region of Africa, which is one of the poorest parts of the world. For me, that brought very vividly into focus this interconnectedness, this fact that we have willy-nilly to accept that we are inhabiting the same planet and that therefore the need for us to make the arrangements that allow all of us to live in dignity and comfort on this planet is absolutely overwhelming. And if we don't make that recognition, at the same time, in seeing this, there are other aspects of it which continue to be a manifestation of the way we are. Let me ask you a question from Denise on Twitter to she tweeted into you. What are some of the ways you plan on engaging younger Ghanaians in your sustainable development goals? I think it's very much one of the issues that came up yesterday and now it's really finding, accepting and utilizing the ways that young people talk to themselves and to the world. I mean, clearly today, perhaps even more, much more than when I was, for instance, growing up, marching on the streets and things, may no longer be the form of protest or engagement. The world of Twitter, Instagram, these are the tools today which young people communicate. So we have to find a way of being able to get into that and use these instruments as a way of connecting and making it clear to people that, yes, it may sound as if it's a distant phenomenon when you talk about the sustainable development goals, being articulated by Antonio Guterres on the platform of the United Nations addressing the assembly of heads of governments, et cetera. But at the end of the day, they reflect the realities of the lives of people. And that is a message, it is that message above all, it's the message that has to be communicated. I mean, a simple example is an example that I gave in my presentation just now. Every year in Ghana, for the last five, six years, 100,000 plus people in Ghana, young students, could not transition from junior high school to senior high school. Not because they didn't have the academic capability, but because their parents couldn't afford to put them into senior high school. You aggregate that, and you're talking about a huge spillage and wastage of human material that is taking place in our country. This year, for the very first time, in a very short pace of time, the implementation of our free senior high school policy has reduced the numbers who could take up their places from 100,000 plus to 36,000. And even this 36,000 are not being denied entrants to further education because of money being longer. They're being denied because they couldn't make the basic qualifying mark. So now, they're also given the opportunity within the system to reset and see whether they can make the mark and join the system. You have to understand what a huge impact this can have on the lives of people in Ghana. Young people for more, the vice president of my country comes from the northern part of Ghana, I come from the south, he's from the northern part of Ghana. And he told me that the day after the placement of the students in the senior high school somebody called him from a city town, a city town in the north, Gusebu, which is in the north-eastern part of Ghana. I mean, with Wanda in their voice, they had a young student who had now found a place in the most prestigious school in Ghana, Hachimoto, because part of the policy is also insisting that all the top schools in Ghana, the 82 leading Ghanaian secondary schools are required to reserve 30% of the places in their schools for people coming from underprivileged or less endowed schools. And this young man now is coming from Gusebu, who's going to Hachimoto, and within the digital space of placing, the life of he and his family have been transformed. And I think that that's, I mean, that is what we need to do is to impress upon people that these goals that are being put out are not some intellectual, dry, arid representation by world leaders of unsustainable or unreachable targets, but that we're talking about very, very important human goals. And if together, collectively, we can find a way to achieve more clearly, clearly, create for ourselves a better, a nobler, a more lasting civilization. And that has to be our goal. This present, something that came up in your presentation was talking about Africa. Kada asked on Twitter, do you believe in Africanism? The idea that Africa should become self-sufficient, utilize its own resources, that almost feels like, how do you answer that other than yes? Absolutely. Okay, and we're done. I'm ticking that one off. Okay, Kada, thank you. Good question. I'm just thinking, you're made in speech at the United Nations. Are you nervous? Did you give us a little sneak preview? Is there a little bit that you told us today that we're gonna hear later? No, I've given you some of the stuff that I wanted to say. Really? What's the juicy stuff? We're talking about the problems that are common to mankind, that all of us know and are talking about. Sustainability, how we can live together, its issues of poverty and prosperity for people, education and health. There's nothing, I'm nervous. You have always to be when you're doing something for the first time. How are you preparing for it? You're like press-ups, working out. Yoga. I need it. Basically concerning myself about the quality of the speech and I mean these internal discussions with all these very, very bright. I'm surrounded by young men who are cleverer than me and I have to, I'm having to always try and keep up and make sure that I can also. You're doing a good job. Do you know what I think might help you practice for your maiden speech? If you introduce the coffee break. And tell everybody here, I mean just imagine that you're addressing the UN right now and you tell everybody here that it's time for the coffee break. Should we do that now? Yeah, let's do that now. All right, stand up. All right. Coffee break. Mr. President, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The coffee break. Okay?