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The Institute of Diplomatic Practice and Development Policies has discovered missing links in Africa’s development strategies that make it difficult for the continent to achieve the desired results to improve the quality of life of its people.

In this direction, the Institute has decided to kick start a series of lectures to make the outcome of their research public to trigger discussions on a national scale that would lead to finding a common African, particularly a Ghanaian position, to present a sustainable way of development.

The maiden lecture scheduled for Tuesday, March 24, is on the topic: “Post 2015 development Agenda and missing links in Africa’s development strategies.”

Commenting on the relevance of the topic ahead of the lecture, Mr James Victor Gbeho, Chairman of the Governing Board of the Institute, told the Ghana News Agency in an interview that the address would strengthen the consensus on Africa’s development course.

Mr Gbeho said with the Millennium Development Goals ending by the close of this year that might have to be replaced by post 2015 sustainable development agenda, Africa needed to present a common position on sustainable development.

“The African Union is already considering a common African position on post 2015 sustainable development agenda, we hope this lecture will strengthen the common African position,” he said.

He said the Institute noticed through its years of research that there were certain missing links in what Africa had done in the last 50 years.

“We want to put out some of the results of our own research at the Institute and see what people think about and to whatever extent it will improve understanding and development in this country,” Mr Gbeho said.

He expressed the hope that the results of the research would contribute and help Ghana do better when it came to forging a new sustainable development policy for the continent.

“It’s been six decades since countries in Africa became independent, we’ve made several attempts at development, we’ve made progress,…but at the same time poverty has deepened and the many of our people on the continent still languish below the poverty line,” he said.

Mr Gbeho said: “Now it is time for the international community to look at what it is doing very carefully with a view to improve on the relationship between the developed and the developing countries.”

He expressed disappointment that for the many years of economic relations with the developed world, they [developed countries] had more or less accepted that the model that served them well in Europe would automatically serve the people of Africa.

But the last 50 years has shown that they have not quite done so, he said, citing several treaties on development partnership cooperation and the introduction of democracy which have not worked for the continent.

He added: “We’ve been told to adopt democracy and it still hasn’t given us what we want yet and so apart from the lack of the tools of development on our side ourselves we must look carefully at what we have done in the last 50 years.”

Members of government, the intellectual community and those who have traditionally piloted policies in the country are expected to feature.

Mr Gheho urged Ghanaians to be serious with the future, saying: “We have lost in some respect the last six decades of independence and must not be repeated.”

“We have the knowledge now, we have the manpower to be able to do so, we have the experience to negotiate with others and we have gone through a number of international treaties and so on with the developed countries,” he said