President John Dramani Mahama has reiterated the strategic role of the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) in coordinating Ghana’s engagement with global philanthropic institutions.
This, he said, was to ensure that grants and other development support are aligned with national priorities.
The President made the remarks during a courtesy call by Alex Soros, Chairman of the Open Society Foundations (OSF), in New York, as Ghana intensifies engagement with global philanthropic and development partners on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly.
The engagement provided an opportunity for President Mahama to reaffirm the expanded mandate assigned to MiDA in 2025, under which the institution serves as Government’s focal point for coordinating philanthropic, grant and humanitarian partnerships.
Explaining the thinking behind the mandate, President Mahama said Ghana needed a more coordinated approach to development assistance, in which international partners work with the country to identify priority areas rather than supporting isolated interventions across multiple sectors.
“Let’s sit with our partners, agree what the priorities are for each country,” the President said, stressing the importance of partnerships that are aligned with national development needs.
He said MiDA’s role was to help ensure that such support reaches the right areas and delivers maximum impact, particularly because many philanthropic interventions cut across several sectors and can otherwise become caught up in institutional and bureaucratic processes.
“MiDA is supposed to crosscut and look at all that,” President Mahama explained, referring to the institution’s responsibility to coordinate grants and other forms of support being developed with Ghana’s international partners.
The President said the decision was informed by MiDA’s existing institutional capacity and experience in managing complex, multi-sector development programmes.
The expanded mandate is intended to provide a coordinated platform through which Ghana can engage global foundations, philanthropic organisations and other grant-making institutions, while ensuring that development resources are aligned with national priorities and managed with appropriate accountability.
President Mahama used his interaction with Mr Soros to outline a broader philosophy underpinning Ghana’s engagement with global philanthropy.
He said while philanthropic organisations often have particular areas of interest — from women’s empowerment and environmental programmes to health and other social interventions — an uncoordinated approach could spread resources across too many areas without achieving sufficient impact.
Ghana’s approach, he said, should instead be based on dialogue with partners to identify the country’s priorities and build partnerships around them.
The President also stressed that greater African self-reliance must go hand in hand with stronger governance, accountability, transparency and prudent management of domestic resources.
He said this should not mean isolating Africa from international partners, but rather developing partnerships in which both sides work towards clearly identified development priorities.
The approach forms part of the wider Accra Reset agenda being championed by President Mahama, including efforts to promote greater health sovereignty, strengthen African agency and reshape the relationship between Africa and its international development partners.
President Mahama told Mr Soros that Ghana’s engagement with global philanthropy had already expanded, citing collaboration involving institutions such as Gavi and the Global Fund.
He also highlighted Ghana’s ongoing work around health sovereignty and the broader Accra Reset agenda, which seeks to build more sustainable approaches to development financing and reduce excessive dependence on external humanitarian support.
Mr Soros, for his part, pointed to opportunities for further cooperation, including through the G20 platform, financing reforms and areas relating to regional security and development.
The meeting comes as Ghana continues to engage major global foundations and philanthropic institutions around the country’s development priorities.