President John Dramani Mahama, has launched the Global Development Reset Initiative, positioning Africa at the forefront of a new vision for global aid and cooperation.

Speaking at the 80th United Nations General Assembly in New York during the Accra Reset: Reimagining Global Governance for Health & Development session, President Mahama issued a powerful call for change in the way the world tackles development challenges.

“The health crisis we face is not only a crisis of disease, vaccines, and hospitals, but also a crisis of social and economic inequality,” he declared. “It is a symptom of a deeper malaise in the global development architecture itself.”

The initiative, inspired by the recent Africa Health Sovereignty Summit in Accra, breaks away from traditional aid models. Mahama argued that the current system is “fundamentally broken,” pointing to punishing debt burdens, fragmented supply chains, and the collapse of legacy aid structures as proof that the global development framework is no longer fit for purpose.

A New Framework for Global Cooperation

The Global Development Reset seeks to rebuild global development around sovereignty, workability, and shared value, enabling countries and institutions to co-invest, co-design, and co-create solutions for prosperity.

Mahama highlighted the trillion-dollar opportunities for inclusive, climate-positive growth, citing IMF estimates that emerging markets will need $2.5 trillion annually in climate finance by 2030. Already, he revealed, more than $1 billion in “reset-compatible” financing has been pledged by African development banks and private institutions.

Three Core Shifts

The initiative proposes three fundamental shifts in global development thinking:

* Mindset shift – acknowledging global unpredictability.

* Focus shift – moving from abstract goals to practical, executable business models.

* Reality shift – embracing diverse interests as a foundation for pragmatic cooperation.

Mahama said the reset envisions a new global coalition—a “partnership of the willing”—featuring a Presidential Council of leaders from Africa, Asia, Latin America and beyond, supported by a high-level panel of experts from health, finance, innovation, and business.

“Africa’s invitation is to co-create a new operating system for world progress,” Mahama said, stressing that while Africa is the starting point, the reset has global implications.

Learning from the Past, Building for the Future

Drawing parallels with the Monterrey Consensus of 2001, which shifted global development from paternalism to partnership, Mahama urged today’s leaders to summon similar courage.

“History will ask whether this generation, in the face of crisis, rose to the occasion,” he said. “I believe we can show the same resolve that leaders like Kofi Annan and Olusegun Obasanjo displayed when mobilizing the world against HIV and AIDS.”

Africa Leading the Way

The Global Development Reset, Mahama concluded, is not just policy reform but a fundamental reimagining of global cooperation.

“Let this be a turning point where we rise as partners and take our destiny into our own hands—for the present and future generations of the world.”

With this bold initiative, Africa positions itself not as a passive recipient of aid but as an active architect of the future of global development.