Mahama lists maternal and child health as first test of Accra Reset

President John Dramani Mahama has identified maternal and child health as the first major test of the Accra Reset, saying the initiative must ultimately produce tangible improvements in the lives of mothers and children. He said health was chosen as the starting point for the global reset because of its importance to human dignity and the continuing challenges facing countries in the Global South. “Health is any human’s most precious possession.

That is why we selected health as the first battleground for this global reset, and why maternal and child health is our first critical test,” he said in New York. President Mahama noted that nearly seven out of every ten maternal deaths globally occur in Sub-Saharan Africa and said Ghana’s maternal mortality rate remained three times above the recommended Sustainable Development Goal target. He said the Mother Africa initiative and the Business United for Mothers, Babies and Youth (BUMBY) campaign would help bring public policy and corporate responsibility together to protect mothers and children, describing the initiatives as opportunities to test the proposed financial and governance architecture in real time.

President John Dramani Mahama has warned against letting the Accra Reset become another international initiative that produces declarations without tangible results for citizens. He said the initiative had now moved beyond conceptual discussions, with Ghana and the Presidential Council preparing to work with governments, global health organisations, development finance institutions, philanthropies and private-sector actors to translate its recommendations into practical country-level agreements. “We are now moving from design to execution,” President Mahama said during the high-level Accra Reset event on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York.

He said the next phase would focus on building networks that link research, regulatory oversight, local manufacturing, and reliable distribution, with potential partners including institutions in Africa, Asia, India, Indonesia, and the Gulf. President Mahama also stressed that the initiative was not intended to promote isolationism, describing its approach instead as “pragmatic interdependence” in which countries work together as equals while developing stronger domestic capabilities. He formally launched the High-Level Panel’s report, A Sovereign Future for Health, which contains five proposed political shifts and ten recommendations for reforming global health governance.