World Leaders Unveil Global Health Reform Blueprint At Accra Reset Anniversary

Heads of State and global leaders have unveiled a new blueprint for reforming the global health architecture, calling for greater country ownership, stronger domestic financing and improved accountability in the delivery of health and development priorities.

The recommendations were presented on Monday by the Accra Reset Presidential Council during a high-level gathering in New York marking one year since the launch of the Accra Reset initiative.

The Principal Report of the Accra Reset High-Level Panel proposes sweeping changes to how global health priorities are determined, financed, implemented and governed. The initiative emerged from a health sovereignty summit convened by Ghanaian President John Mahama in August 2025, amid declining international aid and increasing pressure on countries to take greater responsibility for their health systems.

The report was presented alongside early blueprints for HINGE, a financing mechanism intended to support implementation, and RIO, a proposed global accountability mechanism for tracking progress and results.

The gathering, tagged “Full Circle: Resetting Global Development,” brought together serving and former Heads of State and Government from four continents, as well as leaders of the World Health Organization, OECD, Commonwealth, African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat and International Finance Corporation.

It also launched the Global Reset Dialogues, a platform for cooperation between the Global South and Global North, with migration, critical minerals and trade finance identified among its initial areas of focus.

The platform is intended to provide governments with a forum to negotiate around shared economic interests and global public goods while prioritising national and sovereign interests.

The leaders also considered the Sovereign Prosperity Spheres concept, which seeks to create new models for governments and businesses to mobilise private-sector investment around development priorities determined by individual countries.

Maternal and child health emerged as an early test of the proposed approach, with Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan championing the Mother Africa call to action alongside a global business-sector covenant on maternal health in the workplace.

The initiative comes against the backdrop of an estimated 260,000 maternal deaths globally each year from pregnancy and childbirth-related causes, with about seven in 10 maternal deaths occurring in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the Accra Reset statement.

Other initiatives launched at the event included Masterkey, championed by Kenyan President William Ruto, which focuses on human mobility and seeks to reduce barriers preventing skills and talent from moving to areas where they are most needed.

A new institute for sovereign negotiators, SIGN, was also opened in Kigali, with the G7’s CONNEX initiative and the African School of Governance as strategic partners. The institute is designed to strengthen governments’ ability to negotiate complex international economic and development agreements in line with their national priorities.

The Accra Reset’s High-Level Panel identified 10 key recommendations, including the creation of a one-stop country compact bringing together one plan, one budget and one platform within 12 months; greater reliance on domestic resources to finance health systems; stronger regional institutions; investment in local manufacturing and innovation; procurement coalitions; collective financing of global public goods; and stronger humanitarian health systems.

The recommendations also call for reform of global health institutions and an independent accountability mechanism capable of publicly tracking who delivers on agreed commitments within six months.

The Accra Reset was launched during the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2025, following a health sovereignty summit convened in Accra by President Mahama on August 5, 2025. It is convened by the Accra Reset Presidential Council and hosted by AfroChampions.