President William Ruto has called for a shift in how Africa develops and uses its natural resources, saying the continent must move from exporting raw materials to building industries that add value locally.
Speaking during his address at the 81st Session of the United Nations General Assembly, Ruto said Africa has vast mineral wealth, immense agricultural potential, significant renewable-energy resources and the world’s youngest population.
He said Africa’s resources should be used to strengthen industries on the continent and contribute to addressing global challenges, including food security, clean energy, resilient supply chains and new sources of growth.
“Africa does not come to plead. We come to propose. Our continent holds vast mineral wealth, immense agricultural potential, extraordinary renewable-energy resources, and the world’s youngest population. We are a market of more than 1.5 billion people, increasingly connected through the African Continental Free Trade Area,” Ruto said.
“Africa’s resources must become the beginning of African industry, not the end of Africa’s contribution to the value chain. Extraction defined too much of our past. Investment must underpin our future.”
Ruto said the transition was already taking shape across the continent, citing cocoa-producing countries moving from beans to brands and cotton producers building garment value chains.
He said Africa had also made its position clear that the clean-energy transition should not become another form of extraction.
“The African Continental Free Trade Area must be more than a market for what Africa already produces; it must become the platform on which Africa makes more of what it now imports,” Ruto said.
The President said Kenya intended to be part of this transformation, announcing plans to break ground within a week on the East Africa refinery in Lamu.
He said the refinery would have the capacity to process 700,000 barrels of oil a day and represent an investment of approximately $16 billion.
“Its significance extends beyond one project or one country. It represents the Africa we seek to build: adding value at home, creating jobs for our people, and building industries capable of serving continental and global markets,” he said.
Ruto said the transformation should be financed using both foreign and domestic resources, including more than $4 trillion in domestic capital held in pension funds, insurance assets, sovereign wealth funds, banks and other institutions across Africa.
“The task is to mobilise more of that capital for productive investment while building the safeguards, credible projects, and financial instruments that long-term investors require,” he said.
The President also called for greater African representation in institutions that govern global finance.
He said Africa’s 54 countries are home to nearly one in every five people on Earth, yet the continent’s influence in institutions governing global finance remains disproportionately small.
Ruto said Africa was not seeking special treatment but was proposing shared prosperity.
“We cannot carry substantial obligations under a system while remaining marginal in shaping its rules. If Africa has a stake in the burden, Africa must have a share in the decisions. This is not a plea for special treatment. It is a proposition for shared prosperity. A more industrialised Africa expands global demand,” Ruto said.
He added that a more food-secure Africa would strengthen global stability, while a better-connected continent would diversify global supply chains.
