Dr. Paa Kwesi Heto, a political economist and Visiting Professor at Soka University of America, has said Africa’s lag in development despite abundant resources is not only a leadership failure but a cultural one. “I honestly disagree. That is not just simply a leadership problem. It’s a cultural problem.

Speaking to students at the Legon Centre for International Affairs and Diplomacy (LECIAD), University of Ghana, on the topic “African Multilateralism in the Evolving World Order,” Dr. Heto argued that current debates miss the point by focusing only on implementation failures.

He argued that some mechanisms Africans use to build resilience can become counterproductive. One of those, he said, is a “lackadaisical culture” that downplays serious problems.

“The moment you refuse to accept a problem, do you start thinking about how to solve it sustainably and for a long time?” he asked. “But if you say, ‘oh, is lackadaisical,’ then you no longer have the desire and motivation to solve it.”

Dr. Heto cited Ghana’s perennial flooding as a prime example. “So long as we no longer see it as a problem that bothers us and we can live with it, there’s never going to be a solution,” he said. “We would wait till the next raining season and complain about it.”

He insisted that sustainable progress begins when society says “enough is enough.”

“That is when we start putting our scientists into the lab. That is when we start putting our engineers into their labs for them to come up with solutions for us,” he explained.

Dr. Heto maintained that tackling Africa’s development gap requires confronting both leadership deficits and cultural attitudes that normalize crisis.

Report by Bernard K Dadzie Greater Accra Region