President of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama, convened political leaders, health experts, and global investors in Accra on Tuesday for the Africa Health Sovereignty Summit, a groundbreaking gathering aimed at reshaping the future of global health governance with Africa taking a lead role. The summit featured high-profile attendees, including former Presidents Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, along with the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The summit focused on developing an Africa-led response to global health challenges and strengthening regional resilience through policy, innovation, and investment.
President Mahama called for a complete overhaul of the current global health architecture, emphasizing that it no longer reflects the needs of a digitally interconnected, climate-challenged world. He described Africa’s role not as a patient but as an architect of its own health systems. Addressing the summit, he noted that pandemics, climate shocks, wars, and economic volatility have revealed the deep vulnerabilities in existing health systems, and asserted that the time has come for Africa to take its rightful place as a leader in global health governance.
During his keynote, he announced the launch of several initiatives, including the Ghana Medical Trust Fund also known as Mahama Cares, designed to mobilize public, private, and philanthropic capital to address chronic diseases like hypertension and diabetes. He also confirmed the government’s decision to uncap financing for Ghana’s National Health Insurance Scheme, creating fiscal space of over 3.5 billion cedis to expand and deepen healthcare coverage. Additionally, the government will roll out a new Primary Health Care Programme and recruit community health volunteers in the coming months to enhance preventative care.
The president also unveiled the Presidential High-Level Task Force on Global Health Governance, which will engage global and continental partners to reimagine health systems for the present era. He further introduced the SUSTAIN Initiative (Scaling Up Sovereign Transition and Institutional Networks), a new African-led platform to align national budgets with health priorities and mobilize resources from sovereign, diaspora, and philanthropic sources. The summit emphasized the importance of scaling innovations such as PANABIOS for digital health verification, PROPER for transparent medical supply chains, and BIONOVAC for vaccine production.
President Mahama paid tribute to Africa’s legacy of leadership in global health, referencing figures like President Cyril Ramaphosa, President Paul Kagame, and President William Ruto, who have championed collective action, domestic health financing, and malaria eradication. He also recalled the crucial roles of former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the late Kofi Annan in catalyzing global responses to HIV/AIDS, which helped launch institutions like the Global Fund and GAVI.
The summit positioned Africa CDC, the African Medicines Agency, and other continental health institutions as key pillars of a rising African health ecosystem grounded in innovation, data, and self-determination. Mahama urged Ministries of Finance across Africa to treat health not as an expense, but as a capital investment and called for sovereign wealth funds to invest in biotechnology, diagnostics, and resilient infrastructure.
Calling for a moral and strategic reset of global health governance, Mahama stated that every malaria case prevented is a day of work regained, every maternal death avoided is a family stabilized, and every vaccinated child is a future secured. He urged economists to revise national accounting methods to view health as a productivity multiplier rather than a consumption cost.
In closing, The President said Africa’s health sovereignty is not about isolation but co-creation, declaring that health is the foundation of freedom and the currency of dignity. The summit concluded with a resounding commitment to reshape the global health order with African leadership at the forefront, making clear that the continent will no longer accept imposed limitations but will lead, reform, and own its health future.
