President John Dramani Mahama has delivered one of the strongest calls yet for a fundamental shift in global health financing and governance, declaring before world leaders in Geneva that Africa must move beyond decades of donor dependency and build sovereign health systems capable of financing, regulating, and sustaining themselves.
Addressing delegates at the 79th World Health Assembly, President Mahama said recent cuts in humanitarian assistance and overseas development funding had exposed the fragility of the current global health architecture and forced developing nations, particularly in Africa, to rethink their approach to healthcare financing and institutional resilience.
Speaking before ministers of health, heads of delegation, global health experts, and senior officials of the World Health Organization, Mahama described the moment as a turning point for the Global South.
“These cuts in humanitarian assistance and overseas development assistance, as painful as they are, serve as the final clear signal that the old system of donor dependency is past its sell by date. We are witnessing the end of an era, and we must have the courage to build the next one.”
President John Dramani Mahama
Global Health System Under Pressure
President Mahama opened his address t the 79th World Health Assembly by painting a stark picture of the pressures currently confronting international health systems.
He told the assembly that shifting geopolitical tensions, declining humanitarian assistance, and deliberate pressures on multilateral institutions had created growing uncertainty about the future of global health cooperation.
According to him, the world health architecture has changed significantly since the COVID 19 pandemic, with many traditional donor countries reducing overseas development commitments at a time when healthcare demands continue to rise.
President Mahama noted that humanitarian assistance worldwide has reportedly declined by forty percent, while some of the largest Western economies have significantly reduced external development support.
He also pointed to the financial challenges confronting the World Health Organization following the withdrawal of United States support, a development he said has forced the institution to scale down programmes and reduce staffing levels.
“The World Health Organization’s budget has been gutted by the withdrawal of US assistance, forcing the organization to scale down programmes and undertake steep staff retrenchments”.
President John Dramani Mahama
Ghana Feels Impact Of Aid Withdrawal
Using Ghana as a practical example, President Mahama said his country has already begun experiencing the direct consequences of declining donor support. He disclosed that Ghana lost approximately 78 million dollars in health funding following the closure of United States supported health programmes.
According to him, the funding cuts affected some of the country’s most critical public health interventions, including malaria control, maternal and child healthcare, nutrition programmes, HIV testing, and the delivery of anti retroviral treatment.
“In Ghana, health financing from bilateral and multilateral partners has significantly decreased since 2025. Ghana lost 78 million dollars in health funding following the closure of US aid programmes.”
President John Dramani Mahama
President Mahama said the crisis extends beyond Ghana and is being felt across the African continent. He cited the situation in South Africa, where the abrupt withdrawal of PEPFAR funding has reportedly led to clinic closures, the suspension of gender based violence interventions, and uncertainty over treatment continuity for more than one million people living with HIV.
He warned that if current trends continue, as many as nine million preventable deaths could occur by 2030, while nearly 5.7 million Africans could be pushed into poverty by the end of 2026.
Accra Reset Born From Crisis
President Mahama told delegates that the worsening outlook for global health financing directly inspired the creation of Ghana’s Accra Reset initiative, a policy framework designed to reposition Africa from aid dependency toward health sovereignty.
President Mahama described the initiative as a movement rooted in the belief that African nations should no longer remain passive recipients of global health policy. “I come from a continent that has too often been the subject of global health policy rather than its author,” he stated.
“Today I speak to you as one of the advocates of the Accra Reset initiative, a movement born from the conviction that the old paradigms of dependency must give way to a new era of health sovereignty.”
President John Dramani Mahama
According to the President, sovereignty in healthcare does not mean isolationism. Instead, he said it means building the practical capacity to finance core public health functions, regulate quality, produce essential medicines locally, and govern health data independently.
Call For African Leadership
President Mahama used his address to place responsibility on African leaders themselves, insisting that the move toward health sovereignty must begin with domestic political choices and sustainable public investment.
“This desire to take our health destinies into our own hands imposes important responsibility on us as African leaders. We must see health spending as an investment rather than just a social obligation, because a healthy population is indispensable to economic progress.”
President John Dramani Mahama
He argued that the continent can no longer afford systems where health ministers spend more time preparing donor reports than building strong primary healthcare systems for their people. President Mahama also warned against preserving outdated institutional structures at the expense of human survival.
“If we launch a process of reform that is prohibited from recommending actual reform, we are merely performing a ritual. We cannot prioritize institutional comfort over human survival.”
President John Dramani Mahama
A New Global Health Vision
As he concluded his address, President Mahama urged global leaders to embrace a new model of international cooperation built on partnership, agency, and execution rather than charity.
“The old global health order built in the aftermath of a different century is torn, but a new order is rising,This will be an order defined by agency, not aid, by partnership, not paternalism.”
President John Dramani Mahama
His remarks drew strong attention from delegates as Ghana continues to position itself at the forefront of calls for reform of global health governance and financing.
With the Accra Reset now gaining international visibility, President Mahama’s speech in Geneva may mark one of the clearest signals yet that Africa intends not only to participate in global health policy, but to help write its next chapter.
