Ghana’s President John Mahama has urged developing nations to avoid reliance on foreign health aid.

Mr Mahama stated this in New York on Tuesday while launching the ‘Sovereign Future’ report aimed at reshaping global health governance and fostering self-reliance across the Global South.

The president unveiled the Accra Reset at a high-level side event in New York City on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, saying it focused on local value addition, healthcare investments and a 24-hour economy in developing nations.

According to Mr Mahama, while African nations secured political independence decades ago, global structural inequities continue to compromise their sovereignty.

“We won political independence; we raised our national flags and sang our anthems. Yet, the levers of global trade, finance, and health governance remained firmly anchored elsewhere,” the president said.

He noted that the report outlines a roadmap moving from policy design to immediate execution while advocating for building domestic industrial capability, expanding local pharmaceutical manufacturing, and establishing state-guaranteed purchasing to secure medicine supply chains across Africa and Asia.

Noting that Ghana’s domestic initiatives focused on local value addition and healthcare investments, Mr Mahama reiterated that the initiative is not an attempt to isolate the Global South from international partners, but a call for “pragmatic interdependence” built on equal terms.

“Stronger, self-reliant Southern partners are not a threat to the Global North. On the contrary, resilient health systems in Africa and Asia make the entire world safer for all of us,” he stated.

While rejecting traditional aid models that offer limited local oversight, the Ghanaian president articulated a new doctrine for future development, saying, “No ownership without control, and no control without absolute accountability.”

He explained that Ghana will push the transformative agenda of the Accra Reset to the forefront of continental policy when he assumes the chairmanship of the African Union in 2027.