Issues relating to Africa become more of an afterthought rather than being at the centre of the co-creation of the solutions that we are looking out for. We end up in the small print.

by John Gyapong

Only after everything has been talked about, the question comes up: What about Africa? Maybe we also haven’t been proactive in raising the issues from our perspective. The truth is that – unless you speak, nobody speaks for you. Or, when they speak for you, they may not represent you the way you would want to be represented.

I think that we, as the African continent, need to step back and begin to articulate the issues from our own perspective, so that our perspective can also be around the table during the discussion. If we don’t engage and articulate our positions properly, we get neglected and are seen as small change.

John Owusu Gyapong

John Owusu Gyapong is a Ghanaian Professor of Epidemiology. He was the Vice Chancellor of the University of Health and Allied Sciences, in Ho, Ghana, from 2016 to 2022. He is currently the Secretary-General of the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA).

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