Ghana has called on African countries to move from depending on aid to financing their own health systems as Ministers of Health, Finance and Foreign Affairs gathered in Accra for the 25th Extraordinary Session of the African Union Assembly.

Opening the ministerial session at the Alisa Hotel on Tuesday, Minister of Health welcomed delegates on behalf of President John Dramani Mahama and the people of Ghana.

“Ghana welcomes you today not as a host but as a partne —in a cause greater than our borders. The pursuit of a healthier, more dignified and more self-reliant Africa,” the minister said.  

“Health is neither charity nor a privilege reserved for the fortunate. Health is a matter of justice.”

The minister acknowledged Africa’s gains over the past years. 

In eastern and southern Africa, new HIV infections have fallen by almost 60% and AIDS-related deaths by more than half.

“Africa is no longer merely the world's cautionary tale. We are becoming proof of what is possible. We are moving towards Health Sovereignty,” he said.

He, however, stressed that progress is not the same as success.  

“Africa still accounts for almost 70% of all maternal deaths worldwide. Nearly 200,000 African women lose their lives every year to causes that modern medicine already knows how to prevent,” he said.

“No woman should have to risk her life simply because she chose to give life.”

On Universal Health Coverage (UHC), he noted that while the global UHC service coverage index stands at 71, Africa’s remains at just 44—the lowest in the world. 

“Too many families,” he noted, still choose “between buying medicines and paying school fees.”

To change this, the Minister proposed three commitments under what Ghana is calling the “Accra Reset”:

1.   Africa must deliver on the Abuja Declaration target with predictable, domestic resources. 

“A continent that finances its own health secures its own future.”

2.  Invest in local manufacturing of medicines and vaccines, harmonize regulations, and build resilient regional supply chains so “the next emergency never again finds Africa waiting at the back of the queue”.

3.   “UHC will not be achieved through tertiary hospitals alone. It begins in the community clinic, with the nurse, the midwife, and the frontline teams.”

The Minister said the Government of Ghana has restored full funding to the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), the Ghana Medical Trust Fund—MahamaCares for cancer, kidney failure and stroke patients, and launched a Free Primary Health Care initiative.

“These are not isolated programmes. They reflect a simple conviction: that health systems should prevent illness before treating it, protect families before impoverishing them, and leave no one behind.”

He also said: “It will be judged by whether a mother in a rural village survives childbirth. Whether a young person is protected from a preventable disease. Whether a family keeps both their loved one and their livelihood.”

“The children being born across Africa today will ask only one question: Were we equal to the moment? Ghana believes we can answer that question with confidence.”

This AU session will consider the African Union roadmap to 2030 and beyond on ending AIDS, preventable maternal deaths, communicable and non-communicable diseases, and strengthening health systems.