President Mahama unveils new deal with global philanthropy

President John Dramani Mahama has unveiled a new vision for Ghana’s relationship with global philanthropy, calling for a shift from fragmented, short-term interventions towards partnerships that strengthen national institutions, build local capacity and deliver development outcomes aligned with Ghana’s priorities.

President Mahama made the call at a high-level presidential funders’ roundtable in New York that brought together about 20 major philanthropic organisations and foundations based in the United States, including the Gates Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Rockefeller Foundation, Hilton Foundation and Ford Foundation, among others.

The engagement, organised by the Open Society Foundations on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly, brought together senior leaders and representatives of major global foundations to explore a new approach to international development cooperation.

The President said the changing global development landscape presented an opportunity for Ghana and other countries in the Global South to rethink their relationship with international development partners.

He argued that the objective should not simply be to find new sources of funding when traditional development finance changes, but to build the institutional capabilities that enable countries to take greater control of their own development.

“Development finance can change quickly. Funding priorities shift, and political decisions taken thousands of miles away can have immediate consequences for programmes, institutions and communities in our countries.”

He said Africa already had a clear development vision through Agenda 2063, but the more difficult task was translating that ambition into delivery.

“That requires institutions that can execute, the ability to mobilise and manage resources well, stronger negotiating capability, programmes that can attract the right forms of finance, and systems that allow us to account properly for results and learn from them,” he said.

A new proposition to global philanthropy

President Mahama said Ghana’s Accra Reset was rooted in the principle that sovereignty must be matched by the capacity to exercise it.

He said greater country leadership required governments to have clearer priorities, stronger coordination, better financial management and institutions capable of delivering measurable results.

“We cannot ask our partners to give us greater room to lead while avoiding the difficult work that leadership requires,” the President said.

At the same time, he challenged international partners to examine whether their own approaches were sufficiently designed to strengthen national institutions and give them greater space to lead.

The President said philanthropy had a distinctive role to play because foundations could support areas that conventional development finance and commercial capital might not readily fund.

He pointed to institutional capacity, early-stage programme development, public goods, social priorities and evidence generation as areas where philanthropic support could have a catalytic effect.

“The value of an intervention may lie in the institution that becomes stronger, the evidence that leads to a better public decision, the programme that becomes ready for larger-scale financing, or an approach that proves itself and can then be taken further.”

The President also called for greater coherence among philanthropic organisations, warning that fragmented funding arrangements could place a significant burden on national institutions dealing with multiple funding cycles, reporting requirements and due-diligence processes.

MiDA at the centre of Ghana’s new approach

A key element of the President’s proposition is the role of the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) as Ghana’s institutional gateway to global philanthropy.

President Mahama said his designation of MiDA as Government’s focal institution for international philanthropic partnerships and grant coordination was intended to provide a clear and credible route through which foundations could engage the Government of Ghana.

“MiDA gives us an institution with experience of working to demanding international standards of procurement, financial management, delivery and accountability.”

He said MiDA’s role would be to connect philanthropic partners to the appropriate parts of Government while ensuring that relevant Ministries, the Accra Reset team, civil society and other delivery partners remained part of the process.

The President stressed that country ownership should not mean lower standards for international partners.

“Our responsibility is to build institutions capable of meeting those standards and to give partners confidence that resources can be traced, results can be demonstrated and lessons from implementation can inform what happens next.”

From funding to partnership
President Mahama invited the foundations represented at the roundtable to move beyond traditional funding relationships and explore areas where their expertise, networks, evidence and institutional capabilities could complement Ghana’s development priorities.

He said the nature of support required would depend on the development challenge, with some areas requiring grants, while others could benefit from expertise, research, institutional support or philanthropic capital capable of attracting additional development finance and private investment.

“Ghana, for its part, must be prepared to lead, coordinate and account for what follows,” he said.

He added that MiDA would provide a route for philanthropic partners interested in working with Ghana to take discussions forward and connect them to the appropriate parts of Government.

The President expressed the hope that Ghana could demonstrate that greater country leadership can coexist with strong accountability, while ensuring that philanthropic partnerships build institutions and capabilities that endure beyond any single grant.

The roundtable forms part of President Mahama’s wider engagements during the 81st UN General Assembly, with his message reflecting a broader call for international partners to move from short-term programmes towards long-term capability building.