By Iddi Yire, GNA Special Correspondent in London.
London, June 02, GNA – President John Dramani Mahama on day three of his five-day official visit to the United Kingdom engaged Chatham House in London on “Navigating a Changing Global Order: Ghana’s Strategic Priorities”.
Chatham House is a world-leading policy institute devoted to addressing geopolitical challenges and international problems.
The President in his presentation outlined Ghana’s vision for a more equitable, inclusive, and representative international system.
He said for more than a century, Chatham House had shaped critical conversations on international affairs, diplomacy, governance, and the global order.
He said at moments of profound global transition, institutions such as the Chatham House remained more important as they provided intellectual space not merely to interpret change, but to interrogate its consequences and help shape its direction.
The President reiterated Ghana’s support for comprehensive reform of the United Nations system, particularly equitable representation for Africa on the UN Security Council.
He described the Continent’s exclusion from permanent representation of the world body as a historical injustice and a structural imbalance that undermines the credibility of the multilateral system.
On health, the President said the COVID-19 pandemic revealed a profound inequality within the global system.
He said for many African countries, access to vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and essential medical supplies became dependent not on the urgency of the need, but on the opposition within the global supply hierarchy.
He noted that the pandemic revealed that over reliance on external systems in critical sectors had quickly become a national security vulnerability and it was against this backdrop that Ghana launched the Accra Reset Initiative, which reflected a broader philosophy of climate strategic repositioning.
President Mahama said the Accra Reset Initiative advocated strengthening sovereign capacity across public health systems, pharmaceutical manufacturing, vaccine production, digital infrastructure, food security, industrialization, and strategic financing.
He said the Accra Reset was not an argument against international cooperation, but a call for a new architecture of partnership grounded in mutual respect, co-creation, equity, and shared responsibility.
He said the future of the multilateral system itself could not be built on dependency, but on dignity.
Ghana, he said viewed African integration as not merely an aspiration, but as an economic and geo-political necessity.
The President explained that in a world marked by supply chain fragmentation, shifting in trade blocks, and rising economic nationalism, Africa must strengthen its internal economic resilience.
President Mahama described the African Continental Free Trade Area headquartered in Accra as one of the most consequential economic transformation projects of our generation, saying, “If implemented successfully, the African Continental Free Trade Area has a potential of unlock intra-Africa trade, expand industrial production, strengthen regional value change, and reduce Africa’s excessive exposure to external shocks.”
He noted that African economies had remained overly dependent on exporting raw commodities for too long, while importing finished products were significantly higher value.
He said the model was neither sustainable nor strategically viable; stating that Ghana, therefore, remained committed to industrial transformation, value addition, export diversification, and regional economic integration.
GNA
Edited by Linda Asante Agyei