Charlene Ruto was the highlight of the MeDays Forum in Tangiers, Morocco, on Saturday, November 5, where she popularised the bottom-up economic model, championed by her father, President William Ruto.
Charlene, who was the last speaker at that international meeting that brought together powerful African leaders, appealed to African Presidents to adopt the bottom-up approach.
Defending her remarks, President Ruto's daughter argued bottom-up model was key to creating better opportunities for the youth on the continent.
She added that bottom-up was critical in unlocking Africa's free trade policy which most leaders had grappled with for many years to achieve.
"Restoring higher levels of pan-African social mobility will be among the most important political, social and economic challenges," she told African leaders.
"The longer we wait to address the issue, the more tumultuous our politics will become," she insisted.
Charlene, a champion of the bottom-up model, propositioned in her speech that the approach was the only way to help the youth reach their common dream of transitioning from poverty to hitting the middle-class level of living.
At the same time, she echoed words which were used by former President Uhuru Kenyatta in 2014 during a United Nations (UN) meeting to call on African leaders to embrace homegrown solutions.
Ruto echoed Uhuru's words to emphasise that only Africa has the potential to solve African problems.
"The time to act is now. The question is, who will lead the effort to expand and actualize these pan-African strategies? The simple answer to this is, it is us, the pan-African youth present today," she stated.
The same words were said by Uhuru in 2014 during Africa Sustainability Transport Forum (ASTF), Ministerial Conference, where he noted that Africans themselves should develop imaginative and innovative homegrown solutions to address the myriad challenges facing African nations.
While concluding her speech, Charlene appealed to African leaders to turn challenges into opportunities for better governance, peace, security, and inclusive and sustainable development for all.
