The National Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, has been nominated and approved as the inaugural Chairman of the African Political Parties Initiative (APPI) for a three-year term.
Asiedu Nketiah announced his appointment in a Facebook post following a gathering of political parties from across Africa in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, over the weekend.
He said the initiative seeks to encourage political parties across the continent to move beyond their traditional focus on winning elections and become active contributors to Africa’s economic transformation.
According to him, the discussions centred on whether political parties could position themselves as architects of the continent’s economic future rather than operate mainly as organisations whose activities revolve around electoral contests.
“Parties came from across the continent for one question. Can we be architects of Africa’s economic future, or are we only organisations for winning elections?” he wrote.
Asiedu Nketiah argued that Africa’s development challenges require political parties to build the technical expertise and institutional capacity needed to formulate and implement effective economic policies, even before they assume political power.
He drew attention to the continent’s youth employment challenge, citing figures suggesting that between 10 million and 12 million young Africans enter the labour market annually, while only about three million formal jobs are created to absorb them.
He maintained that the employment gap could not be addressed through election campaigns alone, stressing the need for political parties to develop practical policy solutions in key sectors of the economy.
“We are not yet what the moment requires. Between 10 and 12 million young Africans enter the labour market each year, and we create roughly three million formal jobs to receive them. That gap is not closed by campaigning. It is closed by parties that build expertise in agriculture, trade, energy and public finance before they take office, by governments that keep what works across a transition, and by bringing women and young people into the rooms where budgets are decided,” he stated.
The NDC chairman further highlighted the importance of continuity in governance, arguing that successful policies and programmes should be sustained across changes in political administration to support long-term development
