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.

It said 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.

He said, “President Mahama extends his deep appreciation to President Cyril Ramaphosa, whose leadership has guided this G20 cycle with clarity, courage, and profound commitment to justice,” conveying special greetings from the Ghanaian leader, who also served as an African Union Champion for Reparations.

The Accra Reset represented a fundamental shift in development philosophy, moving away from what Mr Obasanjo described as “an economy of dependency” created by traditional aid and loans.

“To move forward, we must re-architect our economies based on trade and investment,” the former Nigerian leader declared.

Mr Obasanjo 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 signalled 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 stands ready to work closely with the G20,” Mr Obasanjo said, positioning the platform as a “connective tissue interlinking the public, private, and civil factions of Global South societies,” he said.

The initiative 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.