Mahama: Africa Must Speak With One Voice on Global Reform

By News Ghana 

August 22, 2026

President John Dramani Mahama

President John Dramani Mahama says  Africa’s influence over the emerging global order hinges on something the continent has struggled to sustain: a shared position among its 54 states rather than each country negotiating alone.

Mahama made the case in an interview with Ghida Fakhry on TRT World’s Bigger Than Five, arguing that coordinated African diplomacy could reshape outcomes on issues from reparations to United Nations reform in ways that individual countries acting separately cannot. “I believe that this is a time for the continent to become more integrated and united than we’ve been in the past,” he said.

The remarks extend an argument Mahama has pressed at the UN General Assembly and elsewhere: that Africa’s 1.4 billion people and 54 votes carry more weight collectively than country by country. On Security Council reform specifically, he said African states have already agreed they want an expanded council with greater African representation, and that the continent should lock in that consensus before tackling the harder question of veto power. “We need to change our strategy and we need to speak with one voice,” he said.

Mahama linked the reform push to Africa’s parallel campaign for reparations, framing both as tests of whether Global South countries can coordinate rather than compete for attention on the world stage.

He also tied continental integration to economic goals, saying freer movement of people, goods and trade across African borders remains essential to the continent’s ambitions. Recent tensions over migration in South Africa, he said, showed the cost of failing to integrate: he called for migration disputes to be resolved through African Union channels rather than vigilante action, adding that “Africa needs more integration at this point.”

The unity message forms part of Mahama’s broader Accra Reset agenda, which pushes for greater African economic self-reliance and a stronger continental voice in global decision-making.