President John Dramani Mahama has called on countries in the Global South to take greater control of decisions and resources shaping their health, trade and financing systems. Speaking at a high-level Accra Reset event on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York, President Mahama said political independence had not translated into sufficient control over key global systems.
He said countries in the Global South had for decades been expected to take ownership of development programmes while key decisions over their design, financing and implementation remained outside their control.
“Today, through the Accra Reset, we declare unequivocally that there can be no ownership without control,” he said.
President Mahama, however, cautioned that greater control must be accompanied by strong domestic accountability. He said transferring power from international institutions to national governments would not automatically guarantee sovereignty if those governments failed to account for the resources and decisions entrusted to them.
“If we demand control, we must earn it through uncompromising domestic accountability,” he said.
He added that the principle should be “no ownership without control, but no control without absolute accountability to our people.”
Accra Reset report
President Mahama also launched the Accra Reset High-Level Panel report, A Sovereign Future for Health, which contains five proposed political shifts and 10 recommendations for reforming global health governance.
The report calls for greater country control over health decisions, financing and data, stronger regional institutions, increased local health manufacturing and more sustainable financing arrangements.
President Mahama said Ghana and the Accra Reset Presidential Council would work with governments, global health bodies, development finance institutions, philanthropies and the private sector to translate the recommendations into country-level agreements.
He stressed that the initiative was not intended to isolate the Global South from international partners but to promote what he described as “pragmatic interdependence” based on more equal partnerships.
“Stronger, self-reliant Southern partners are not a threat to the Global North,” he said.
AU agenda
President Mahama said Ghana would seek to advance the Accra Reset agenda within Africa’s collective policy framework when the country assumes the African Union chairmanship in 2027.
He said the initiative would focus initially on health, with maternal and child health identified as an early test of the proposed new approach.
The Accra Reset was launched in 2025 as a Ghana-led initiative aimed at reforming global development financing and governance, with health identified as an entry point for building greater self-reliance and local capacity.