Johannesburg: Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has delivered a landmark address at the G20 Leaders' Summit in Johannesburg, announcing the formal commencement of the Accra Reset's interim Secretariat in Ghana. A statement issued by Ghana's Presidency said former President Obasanjo highlighted President John Dramani Mahama's transformative leadership in reshaping global development cooperation.
According to Ghana News Agency, speaking on behalf of President Mahama who is spearheading the Accra Reset initiative, Mr. Obasanjo told assembled world leaders that the Global South-anchored platform had expanded its Circle of Leaders to include more than two dozen former Heads of State and international organisation leaders from Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, and the Caribbean.
Mr. Obasanjo conveyed President Mahama's deep appreciation to President Cyril Ramaphosa, whose leadership has guided the G20 cycle with clarity and commitment to justice. The Accra Reset represents a fundamental shift in development philosophy, moving away from what Mr. Obasanjo described as 'an economy of dependency' created by traditional aid and loans.
The former Nigerian leader declared the need to re-architect economies based on trade and investment. He emphasised that the initiative aimed to transform development cooperation into a system that was 'country-led, regionally empowered, and globally coherent,' marking a departure from decades of top-down approaches that had characterised North-South relations.
The announcement of the Secretariat's launch in Accra signaled a new phase for the initiative, which President Mahama had championed as a vehicle for ensuring that global governance reforms were 'co-created, not imposed; negotiated with fairness, not inherited from history.' A High-Level Panel was being convened to prepare a landmark report on restructuring global governance, to be submitted to a commissioning authority composed of Heads of State from both the Global North and Global South, the statement said.
Mr. Obasanjo praised South Africa's G20 Presidency under President Ramaphosa for advancing priorities that aligned closely with the Accra Reset mission, including a more equitable global financial architecture, global health resilience, fair technology partnerships, and widening Global South participation in multilateral decision-making.
The Accra Reset seeks to transition international development from endless aspirational targets to workable business models that drive real and durable change, reflecting President Mahama's pragmatic vision for economic transformation across the Global South.