PRESIDENT Paul Kagame has urged African leaders to work towards doing away with counterproductive political influence and concentrate on meeting the development aspirations of their people.The President was speaking at the seventh edition of the African Economic Conference that opened in Kigali, yesterday."The social and economic development of Africa must be Africa-owned and Africa-led. Leaders in particular, have to reshape political and economic thinking in order to address the development aspirations of their people and also to better cope with external factors,” Kagame said.The continental meeting, organised by the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) , looks to explore the continent’s prospects for sustainable and inclusive growth in the wake of the global economic crisis."If our development depended on the advice of economists alone, we would have made tremendous progress. But it does not. Our economies operate in both national and international political contexts which have a huge impact on choices countries like ours make and their outcome,” he said."In Rwanda, we understand that politics and economics go hand in hand and we have made a conscious and deliberate choice of inclusive development based on our political reality. By and large, they have produced positive results. Growth has been consistent and poverty levels considerably reduced by 12 percent from 56.9 percent to 44 percent in five years,” Kagame observed.President Kagame pointed out that Rwanda’s economic growth is a result of ownership of programmes, citizen participation, a high degree of accountability, effective cooperation with development partners and the building of strong institutions.The President, however, cautioned against external political manipulations, saying it can stifle economic growth."In the case of Rwanda, there has recently been a puzzling eagerness on the part of some of our partners to slow down our progress.  Yet Rwanda has followed what has been prescribed as correct practices, and all indications are that we have done the right thing,” Kagame told the forum which drew leaders and scholars from around the world.Among other notable dignitaries attending the conference are Olusegun Obasanjo, former President of Nigeria, Joaquim Rafael Branco, former Prime Minister of Sao Tomé and Príncipe, UNDP Administrator, Helen Clark, President of the AfDB, Dr Donald Kaberuka and Executive Secretary, ECA, Carlos Lopes."President Obasanjo, you left us a little bit too early. Because we had a team of leaders during that time who were supposed to mobilise other African leaders for Africans, for the common front, cause and purpose of our continent and for different reasons good and bad,” Kagame said."Most of those leaders if not all of them are not with us to continue the fight, you left when the fight was picking up momentum. I can sadly mention that Africa is lacking in terms of leaders to stand up against these challenges.”"We cannot continue to have Africa with all these resources being run over and dedicated to by everybody passing around, it’s very serious,” President Kagame emphasised.Citing the example of the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the President pointed out the DRC has two major problems - failure of the country’s leadership or lack of governance and the inability of the international community to address the root cause of the crisis, yet year-after-year they have allocated massive resources with no results."International community is so big to take responsibility of its failures, it must look for somebody to carry the responsibility and that is how it has come to be (blamed on) Rwanda,” Kagame explained, adding that Rwanda cannot accept to be black mailed. African countries, he added, must know what they want and make plans to delink themselves from counterproductive political influences of others.During the conference, participants will examine the key drivers of growth in Africa.With 50 out of 55 countries in the region producing or prospecting for oil, the conference will look at the possibility of using profits from extractive industries to spur economic diversification and investments in social capital and human development.The President of the African Development Bank, Dr Donald Kaberuka said: "We must answer the question of implementation of recommendations made at these conferences we have been holding. There is no escalator to development, it’s a hard slope, and Africans must be ready to fall back and try again."Rwanda has shown us that inclusive growth is not only possible but also sustainable,” Kaberuka said.The UNDP Administrator, Helen Clark, observed that while challenges to sustainable growth do exist, Africa has the potential to work around them."Achieving the inclusive and sustainable growth which advances human development, within the boundaries of our planet, is a huge challenge. Yet we meet here bound by the conviction that the vast potential of Africa and its peoples can rise to this challenge,” said UNDP Administrator Clark.The Conference will end Friday, November 2, 2012