Ghana’s Mahama urges leaders to prioritise health investment

Ghana’s President John Mahama has called on African governments and investors to treat health as a productive economic sector, arguing that greater investment could strengthen health sovereignty while creating jobs and keeping capital on the continent. 

“Let us stop treating health as a line-item expense in our budget. Let us build the factories, integrate supply chains, fund innovators, and secure our citizens’ future,” he charged while speaking at the recently concluded Alamein Africa Forum in Egypt.

President Mahama stressed that health is “an investable high-growth economic sector that drives human capital, manufacturing, job creation and macroeconomic stability.”

He cited evidence from the Copenhagen Consensus showing that targeted investment in basic emergency maternal and newborn care could generate $87 in economic and social returns for every dollar invested, and the Lancet Commission’s finding that falling mortality rates accounted for nearly a quarter of income growth in developing economies in the early 2000s.

This adds to the body of evidence that shows investing in health care strengthens national balance sheets rather than depleting resources, he maintained.

Mahama noted that the continent imports more than 70% of its pharmaceuticals and nearly 99% of its vaccines, while development assistance for health is also expected to decline. 

“The situation presents not only a crisis but also a significant market opportunity for domestic private capital,” he said.

In Ghana, Mahama said the government is implementing the “Accra Reset” through the expansion of the National Health Insurance Scheme, the Free Primary Health Care Programme and the Ghana Medical Trust. 

Connecting value chains

The next challenge, Mahama said, is to connect such initiatives into continental value chains by removing regulatory and financial barriers. 

“Today, we present the Health Investment and National Gateway Enabler. Developed with the African Medicines Agency, Institut Pasteur and AfroChampions, HINGE will become a digital platform that streamlines regulations, clinical validation and commercialisation into a unified process for innovators and investors,” he announced.

The Ghanaian president also challenged financiers, regulators and industrialists to identify the practical measures needed to move African production towards active pharmaceutical manufacturing. 

The maiden Africa Alamein Forum, held in Egypt on 2-3 October 2026, was an initiative of the Government of Egypt, Afreximbank, the African Union, and AUDA-NEPAD. It brought together government and business leaders to assess the challenges and opportunities in the continent’s growth agenda.