Nana Akufo-Addo believes it is high time the Africans in the diaspora made efforts to help change the negative perception about the African continent.

He says the talk-about of Africa from outside the continent, has usually been that about disease, hunger, poverty and illegal mass migration.

The President in his speech at the Young African and Diasporan Leaders’ Summit held in line with the US-Africa Leaders’ Summit in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, stated “The urgent responsibility we face is to make our countries and our continent attractive for our people to see them as places of opportunities.”

He used the case of China which has a diasporan population of sixty million people who were said to be the 25th largest country in the world, who, according to the Nikkei Asian Review, owned assets worth US$2.5 trillion.

“When foreign companies in the late 1970s, reduced their investments in China, it was the Chinese Diaspora which shored up the economy.

According to the Washington D.C.-based Migration Policy Institute (MPI), half of the foreign direct investments, about US$26 billion which transformed China into a manufacturing powerhouse in the 1990s, originated from the Chinese Diaspora,” Akufo Addo explained.

The President hinted it was the rationale behind, “Beyond the Return” initiative by the Government of Ghana, which, he explained, was building on the considerable success of the “Year of Return”, and the renewed enthusiasm around building Africa together.

Vice President of the United States of America, Kamala Harris was present at the summit.