Nairobi — Something curious happened at the annual shindig of billionaires and powerbrokers in the Swiss Alps village of Davos this time around. It is not clear, however, that enough members of the global elite fully registered its significance.
Presidents and Vice Presidents of African countries - including Ghana, Egypt, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Nigeria - arrived as usual to hobnob with those who control the vast wealth and power that shapes the world. But this time they seem to have left the begging bowls and timid voices at home. It was as if they had come to stake a claim, to plant a flag. It soon became clear that they had formed alliances with leaders from other continents, in South East Asia, the Indian subContinent, Latin America, and even the Pacific Islands. One phrase explains the jarring break with tradition: Accra Reset.
In a world where globalization is fraying, supply chains are under strain, and traditional development models are faltering, this unusual and dazzling display of Global South power, with Africa at the forefront, presented a vision so glaring that no one who watched it could have missed how brazenly it defied the typical place Davos places African leaders. In the official program and in the round-the-clock coverage on the international networks, Africa was barely a footnote. But in a packed room at the Belvedere Hotel, a centerpiece of the main thoroughfare in Davos, known as the "Promenade", it was all "African Power" on stage.
Follow us on WhatsApp | LinkedIn for the latest headlines
The Accra Reset Initiative cut through the overcrowded Davos mist with a proclamation that Africa will no longer wait for a global system that no longer works as promised. Instead, the crew of continental leaders leading this movement are insisting that Africa must define its own economic sovereignty, harness its resources, and mobilize its domestic capital to drive growth on its own terms.
Flanked by supportive presidential voices from Egypt, DRC, Kenya, and Togo, Ghana's John Mahama hogged the limelights like a celebrity. Metaphor after metaphor rang through his main speech and closing remarks. From declaring the current "multilateral governance system" as sagging under "postcolonial baggage" to warning about "pressure vents" on the verge of cracking under Africa's demographic explosion, Mahama spoke bluntly about why there is no more time to waste.
Some of Mahama's portraits are well-known and widely reproduced. The fact that COVID-19 made it abundantly clear that pity won't save Africa or that, if push came to shove, Africans would be allowed to die like flies, is hardly revealing. What was revealing is the impatience and candour with which he acknowledged that the lip-service paid after the pandemic to build self-reliance was just that: lip-service.
African Presidents are not known for cutting to the chase and tossing aside the polite diplomatic finesse about "partnerships" and "solidarity" and how the world owes Africa fairness etc. in their international outings. This time, they were pulling all the stops.
Nigeria's Vice President, Kashim Shettima, representing Bola Tinubu, the substantive President, was equally direct and upfront. Clad in resplendent native wear, he itemised, one after the other, steps that Nigeria is taking to break the shackles of what Accra Reset strategists have dubbed the "Triple Burden". Like the four horsemen of the apocalypse, except short of one rider, the burdens are, in no specific order, "marginalisation", "vulnerability", and "dependency." Perhaps, the fact that the Nigerian President chose to skip Davos to focus on a trip to Turkey a few days later says something about the country's Global South emphasis. If so, Shettima kept that to himself. What he left no one in doubt of was the country's determination to reposition itself away from the path of supplication.
Another metaphor used at the convening that stuck like a limpet was the description of the continent's condition as one similar to a "pandemic of unfulfilled potential." Both Mahama and Shettima linked the despair of youth unemployment to Africa's paradox of hunger and destitution amidst natural plenitude. There was the perennial talk of exporting minerals in their raw form in markets designed to ensure that Africa captures just enough of the barest scraps to keep shipping the stuff, but never enough to break the cycle and start internalising serious value.
What was different is that, this time, the African leaders connected this directly to Africa's geopolitical posture and recognised the need to make the ambition of correcting such age-old marginalisation the basis of both their regional and international economic diplomacy.
It was also heart-warming to hear Mahama explain clearly that his government saw Ghana's ongoing economic turnaround and the drivers of that recovery story - fiscal discipline, accountability in public financial management, bureaucratic efficiency, strategic management of external debt, public sector transformation through technology etc. - as anchors around which to engage other African leaders about substantive regional reforms. Even though the African Peer Review Mechanism was envisaged to promote something along these lines, it has over the years been denied the high-level political support necessary. Quite possibly because it was crafted as a technocratic process rather than an instrument of Africa's regional and international political economy. The Accra Reset seems keen to find a path back towards that kind of policy peer pressure.
There are some who will still be cynical. One such person after taking in the overload of novelty still felt uneasy enough to ask whether this wasn't just another NEPAD in a new suit and tie. Understandable wariness given the history of grand continental initiatives. But there was a hands-on practicality about how issues were being framed and actions suggested that sparked hope that this time could be different.
The senior bankers and financiers representing Africa's main development finance institutions talked about trillions of dollars locked in institutional inertia - across pension trusts, sovereign wealth funds, and similar capital pools - that could be unlocked and coordinated across the continent to back some of the Accra Reset's more audacious programs, such as the Sovereign Prosperity Spheres. The clarity of these plans seem refreshing in a way that was quite rare in continental plan-making.
Moreover, the President of DRC himself showed remarkable familiarity with the Sovereign Prosperity Sphere envisaged in his neck of the woods - the Great Lakes Corridors. He was dazzlingly specific about structures, processes, and decision-trees in ways that suggested that the propositions are intimately connected with real, on the ground, efforts rather than the usual pie in the sky blueprints that one often hears at the big conferences in Africa.
The other thing that was intriguing is the sheer number of high-caliber former Heads of State and Government willing to engage practically with the Accra Reset. Assembling under the banner of the Guardians' Circle, these world leaders - including Olusegun Obasanjo, Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Helen Clark, Gro Brundtland Harlem, James Patterson, Nkosazana Zuma, and several others - have all found common cause to throw their weight behind the Accra Reset. They must certainly have sensed an inflection point and convinced themselves that the initiative has the weight to shift the direction of something major in the current global order. And, hopefully, towards real change that benefit real people in Africa and the Global South.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
In a world where old guarantees are fading, and a scramble for all appears to define what remains of geopolitics, why shouldn't an initiative that has come so far so quickly since its origins in a conference hosted by Mahama in August 2025 be given a chance?
The answer of course is in the practical vision the Accra Reset lays out and the steps it takes to execute and vindicate that vision. From what was showcased and explained at Davos, quite a bit of that duty was discharged.
Mahama's direct order to his finance mandarins to work with others to explore the repatriation of a portion of Africa's reserves held in Western capitals due to mistrust of continental alternatives was bold and concrete. The announcement by the Accra Reset Presidential Council of the creation of a kind of credentialed Sovereign Negotiators' Club to bolster Africa's dealmaking capacity was likewise tangible and forthright. The panel of eminent global health leaders, such as Peter Piot and Nisia Trindade, set up to advise the Accra Reset leaders on how to push for specific, high-value, changes to the global health institutions was anything if not clear and lucid. As also are the upcoming policy-exchanges with Indonesia, Singapore, and South Korea on critical minerals and artificial intelligence.
No one could have listened to such thoughtful and methodical action-roadmaps and left with the impression that Accra Reset is another talkshop. Action, of course, is not guaranteed to succeed. But God knows Africa has heard enough talk and will take action, especially presidential action, anyday.
