President John Dramani Mahama has called for sweeping reforms to the global health architecture, arguing that the current system is fragmented, donor-driven and increasingly incapable of responding effectively to modern healthcare challenges.
Speaking at the 79th World Health Assembly in Geneva, Mahama said the world was witnessing “the end of an era” in global health governance and urged leaders to embrace a more practical and sovereign-driven model.
“We do not come to Geneva to mourn the past,” he said. “We come to build a future where a country's health is not a by-product of charity, but the result of sovereign capability.”
The President made the remarks while promoting the “Accra Reset” initiative, a Ghana-backed movement aimed at redefining health governance across the Global South.
Mahama Criticises Fragmented Global Health System
Mahama argued that despite the proliferation of international health organisations, coordination at country level has worsened over time.
“We have more global health organisations than ever, and yet country-level fragmentation has worsened,” he stated.
The Ghanaian leader warned that any reform process that avoids examining institutional inefficiencies would amount to little more than symbolism.
“If we launch a process of reform that is prohibited from recommending actual reform, we are merely performing a ritual,” he declared.
Mahama added that protecting institutional mandates should never take precedence over saving lives.
“The WHO's legitimacy is not served by protecting silos. It is served by a fearless analysis of what works,” he said.
Accra Reset Built on Three Pillars
According to Mahama, the Accra Reset initiative is built around three operational pillars designed to improve coordination, financing and local healthcare manufacturing.
The first is a High-Level Panel on Reform made up of global experts reviewing the international health system.
The second is the Reform Interlock and Observatory, which aims to ensure that programmes run by organisations such as the World Health Organization, Gavi and the Global Fund operate in harmony rather than duplication.
The third pillar, known as Health Investment National Gateway Enablers (HING), seeks to transform political commitments into concrete investments in local pharmaceutical production and biotechnology.
Mahama stressed that Africa cannot claim health sovereignty while producing less than one per cent of global vaccines despite carrying a quarter of the world’s disease burden.
“A continent that manufactures less than 1% of its vaccines while carrying 25% of global disease burden is not sovereign,” he said.
The President disclosed that Ghana’s 2026 budget allocated GH¢34 billion to healthcare and expanded health coverage to 20 million people.
“We are not lecturing from theory,” Mahama said. “We are building the evidence of what a sovereign health system should look like.”
He concluded by urging world leaders to focus less on conferences and more on practical healthcare outcomes.
“The only metric that matters is whether a child in the global south has a reasonable chance of survival as a child in the global north,” he stated.
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