President John Dramani Mahama has called for new governance, business, and financing models to achieve sustainable health financing and development across the world.
He said the prevailing global development architecture was no longer fit for purpose.
The President said that global health crises, especially in Africa, were not only issues of diseases, vaccines and hospitals, but also social and economic inequality; symptoms of deeper malaise in the global development architecture itself.
He added that the traditional aid system had collapsed, with developing countries struggling with punishing debt burdens and fragmented supply chains.
“Developing countries now spend more on servicing external debts than they do on health care and education combined.
Africa's external debt stock alone exceeded $1 trillion in 2023, with debt service consuming nearly one-fifth of government revenues in many African countries,” President Mahama said.
He said “Accra Reset”, a new global governance for health and development, had proposed a new development paradigm that prioritises health sovereignty, economic resilience, and global solidarity.
President Mahama, who doubles as the AU Champion for African Financial Institutions, made the call at the launch of “The Accra Reset” as a co-host on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) 2025, in New York, the US.
Event
The Accra Reset event was held on the theme: “Reimagining global governance for health and development." It is a pivotal initiative for the introduction of a bold and actionable framework to fundamentally transform global governance architecture to ensure it is fit-for-purpose in a turbulent, post-SDG era.
It was a follow-up event of last month’s Africa Health Sovereignty Summit held in Accra, which proposed a new operating logic that prioritises resilient coalitions, syndicates, and agile platforms capable of delivering concrete results amid global polycrisis.
The initiative demonstrates new thinking while inspiring systemic action across all development sectors.
The event was attended by a former President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, co-host; former UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown; the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley; UNAIDS Executive Director, Winnie Byanyima, and the Director-General of WHO, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
There were also leaders of multilateral institutions, philanthropic organisations, business innovators, and civil society representatives from across Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and global institutions.
Gains
President Mahama further said there had been some achievements made over the last two decades, where millions of people were taken out of poverty, as well as maternal mortality declining by a third since 2000, coupled with expanded access to vaccines, HIV treatment and malaria prevention.
He, however, said the progress was erased by the COVID-19 pandemic in less than two years, turning back the clock.
“The COVID-19 pandemic erased two decades of poverty reduction in less than two years. Climate change has driven nearly 735 million people back into chronic hunger. Almost one in 10 of the world's population is facing chronic hunger,” the President added.
The UN 2023 Report indicated that fewer than half of the 169 SDG targets were on track, while on health, the situation was particularly dire with inequality and fiscal resilience, especially as official development assistance was reported to be in decline by some 40 per cent.
“We need to strategise. The world needs a reset, a reengineering of the very logic of development itself.
“This is the vision of the Accra Reset, to rebuild global development around sovereignty, workability and shared value, to make it possible to co-invest, co-design and co-create for shared priorities,” the President said.
Solidarity
For his part, former President Obasanjo emphasised the need for global solidarity in addressing health issues, particularly in developing countries.
He mentioned climate change, pandemics, and financial contagion as some of the issues that needed to be addressed.
Mr Obasanjo said solidarity was not charity, but a common security and insurance policy for all nations.
“Through the Jubilee 2000 campaign, over $100 billion in debt for more than 30 African countries was cancelled.
The launch of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS raised over $50 billion and saved millions of lives in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
That was not an act of charity; it was an act of solidarity and justice,” he said.
