Speaker Bagbin Decries Foreign Aid Tied to “Alien” Cultural Paradigms, Says Africa Must Legislate from Own Heritage
Gladson Afriyie
Journalist
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Rt. Hon. Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin, Speaker of Ghana’s Parliament and Chairperson of the Inter-Parliamentary Union of Africa, has criticized the practice of tying development assistance and trade deals to legal and cultural norms he described as “alien to our social cultural fabric.”
Delivering his keynote address at the 4th African Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family Sovereignty and Values in Accra, Bagbin said African parliaments are constitutionally empowered to act as the bridge between traditional heritage and modern statutory law.
“Our constitutions empower parliament to act as the breach between traditional heritage and modern statutory law. When African parliaments legislate on the family we fulfill a direct legitimate constitutional command,” he told delegates.
But he warned of a “troubling narrative” in recent years where aid, trade agreements, natural resource deals, and bilateral cooperation are made conditional on adopting external legal and cultural frameworks.
“Development assistance, trade agreements, natural resource agreements and bilateral cooperation have been made contingent upon the adoption of legal and cultural paradigms alien to our social cultural fabric,” Bagbin stated.
CUE IN......BAGBIN
Rt. Hon. Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin, also condemned the practice of making aid contingent on adopting foreign legal and cultural norms, saying it breaches the United Nations Charter.
Speaking at the 4th African Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family Sovereignty and Values in Accra, Bagbin said development assistance and trade deals are increasingly being made “contingent upon the adoption of legal and cultural patterns alien to our social cultural” fabric.
“I want to emphasize that conditioning aid on the alignment of domestic laws to the disadvantage of beneficiary countries violates the principle of sovereign equality enshrined in the United Nations Charter,” he told delegates.
