President John Dramani Mahama has identified maternal and child health as the first major test of the Accra Reset, saying the initiative must ultimately produce tangible improvements in the lives of mothers and children.

He said health was chosen as the starting point for the global reset because of its importance to human dignity and the continuing challenges facing countries in the Global South.

“Health is any human’s most precious possession. That is why we selected health as the first battleground for this global reset, and why maternal and child health is our first critical test,” he said in New York.

President Mahama noted that nearly seven out of every ten maternal deaths globally occur in Sub-Saharan Africa and said Ghana’s maternal mortality rate remained three times above the recommended Sustainable Development Goal target.

He said the Mother Africa initiative and the Business United for Mothers, Babies and Youth (BUMBY) campaign would help bring public policy and corporate responsibility together to protect mothers and children, describing the initiatives as opportunities to test the proposed financial and governance architecture in real time.