Former President of Nigeria and Co-Convenor of the Accra Reset Initiative, Olusegun Obasanjo, has urged world leaders at the G20 Summit to deepen collaboration with the Accra Reset, the South African Presidency, and the African Union to help Africa shift from aid dependency toward full sovereignty in its health governance and development agenda.
Obasanjo delivered the speech on behalf of President John Dramani Mahama, the architect of the Accra Reset, which grew out of the Accra Compact, a six-month roadmap designed to drive a continent-wide transition from external dependence to self-reliance following the Africa Health Sovereignty Summit convened by Mahama in August 2025.
He commended South African President Cyril Ramaphosa for what he described as transformational leadership of the G20, marked by clarity, courage, and a profound commitment to justice. Obasanjo praised South Africa and the African Union for championing Africa’s and the broader Global South’s interests, particularly in reforming global financial structures, strengthening health manufacturing sovereignty, expanding digital public infrastructure, and ensuring inclusive multilateral decision-making.
“This Johannesburg Summit has been defined by integrity of purpose, a clear focus on structural reform, and an unwavering commitment to ensure that the G20 delivers progress for all peoples and not just a privileged few,”
“We acknowledge several important highlights of this year’s Presidency—the advancement of a more equitable global financial architecture, strong emphasis on global health resilience and manufacturing sovereignty, renewed momentum around digital public infrastructure, fair technology partnerships, inclusive growth and decent jobs, and the widening of Global South participation in multilateral decision-making.”he said.
Obasanjo conveyed President Mahama’s appreciation for Ramaphosa’s stewardship and reaffirmed the alignment between the G20’s reform agenda and the Accra Reset, a Global South-anchored platform aimed at refashioning development cooperation into a system that is country-led, regionally empowered, and globally coherent.
He announced that the Accra Reset is now fully positioned to work closely with the G20, with its Interim Secretariat operational in Accra and the Presidential Council; comprising heads of state, former heads of state, and multilateral leaders, now boasting over two dozen global figures. The initiative, launched on the sidelines of the 80th UN General Assembly, is built on three pillars: sovereignty, workability, and shared value, with health as its entry point. It is structured around a Presidential Council, Global College of Advisors, Secretariat, and Club of Accra Coalition.
“The Accra Reset stands ready to work closely with the G20,” Obasanjo affirmed. “It is poised to serve as the connective tissue linking public, private and civil spheres across the Global South. It aims to work through the African Union and the South African Presidency to advance G20-enabled reforms in health governance, digital cooperation, development finance, investment guarantees, youth employment, wealth creation, and resilient supply chains.”
He emphasized that the Accra Reset–G20 cooperation should not be seen as a competing framework but rather as a strategic reinforcement of the financial architecture reform agenda already endorsed by G20 leaders. Obasanjo warned that the traditional aid model, long treated as the backbone of Africa’s development, has become inadequate for the continent’s future.
“We see this cooperation not as a parallel track, but as a strategic reinforcement of the agenda in finance and financial architecture championed in the Leaders’ Declaration of the 2025 G20 Summit in South Africa, mindful of the inadequacy of aid, which is drying up, and borrowing, which has become counterproductive for human capital development in Global Africa,” he noted.
He further underscored that the Accra Reset Agenda, the roadmap for African health sovereignty within a reimagined global health architecture, is built on the recognition that the old aid model can no longer sustain the realities of this era echoed by John Mahama. President Mahama argued at the Africa Health Sovereignty Summit that COVID-19 wiped out two decades of development gains in less than two years, while extreme climate shocks now threaten more than 735 million people with hunger, evidence that a new governance and financing paradigm is urgently needed.
The initiative is therefore designed not only to secure sovereignty and resilience for African health systems but also to accelerate progress toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, positioning Africa as a co-architect of global solutions rather than a passive recipient of assistance.
By: Richmond Fordjour Ampofo
