President William Ruto has opined that Africa will not develop if it depends on charity.
He said the continent has the potential to develop without handouts.
He spoke on Thursday in New York during the United Nations General Assembly, United States of America.
"We do not think our continent is going to be developed using charity or handouts or alms or tokens. We have talked in our continent about potential," Ruto said.
The time to talk about the potential for the continent, Ruto said is over.
According to the Head of State, the conversation on Africa's development should be geared towards opportunities and investments.
"And the way to do that is to make sure that our situation in the continent is such that we have equal opportunities like everybody else," he said.
Ruto said Africa wants a win-win outcome adding that the continent has assets.
"We have enormous renewable assets, 60 per cent of all renewable energy is in our continent. 30 per cent, maybe 40 per cent of all critical minerals are in our continent. We have 60 per cent of all arable uncultivated land today, and we have the youngest population," Ruto said.
He said the assets Africa has must count for something. Ruto said the next move should be transforming the potential Africa has into investments and opportunities.
Further, Ruto said Africa faces challenges in the Financial market when trying to access resources for development.
He said the continent ends up paying almost eight times more in the Financial market.
This, he blamed on rating agencies in the Financial market, the risk analysis, and sovereign debt framework which he said are not fair to Africa.
"These rating agencies assign very high risk to our continent. What we end up doing is that we pay interest more than others. And that is the reason today, out of the 10 countries in debt distress, six are from Africa," the Head of State said.
"All of them are in the developing world because if you are paying eight times more, you are set up for distress from the beginning."
Ruto said the rating agencies and the risk analysis framework in the Financial market must be reformed.
"The reason we ended up in a financial crisis in 2007 is because of the same rating agencies. They were wrong back then, and I bet they are wrong today about us," Ruto said.