President John Dramani Mahama says Ghana is “leading by example” in calling for African leaders to prioritise healthcare systems and avoid dependence on donor institutions.
He indicates that his administration in 2026 committed substantial funds to the sector, ensuring the push for continental health sovereignty is not just rhetoric.
In a keynote address delivered at the 79th World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva, Switzerland, on Monday, May 18, 2026, President Mahama noted that Ghana is establishing a path where other leaders in the region could imitate in providing healthcare for their citizens.
“In Ghana, we are leading by example. Our 2026 budget committed GHS 34 billion to health and expanded coverage to 20 million people. We are not lecturing from theory. We are building the evidence of what a sovereign health system looks like.”
He charged the Assembly to prioritise three things in its quest to promote health sovereignty, asking the gathering among others, to move beyond rhetoric to action.
“First, do not let “reform” be a ceiling. If we are to fix the system, we must be brave enough to look at institutional mandates and mergers without fear. Second, invest in execution. The world does not need more communiqués; it needs deal rooms, local factories, and resilient supply chains. Third, measure success by the clinic, not the conference,” he charged.
According to him, “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.”
“The old global health order, built in the aftermath of a different century” he noted, “is tottering”, adding that “a new order is rising.”
He asserted that this new order is “defined by agency, not aid, and by partnership, not paternalism, and it is being built for the mother in the global south who, even as we speak, will be delivering her child under the light of a lamp this evening.”
President Mahama added that the vision for health sovereignty is to help citizens of the Global South in the future, without its advocates having to necessarily benefit from it.
“In Africa, we have a saying that the one who plants a tree does not always sit in its shade. The reforms we discuss today are for the generations we may never meet. Let our seriousness today be the shade they rest in tomorrow.”
