Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Ali Pate, has called for a new vision for global health that places Africa at the core of future governance, trade, financing and innovation.

Speaking on Tuesday at the Africa Health Sovereignty Summit in Accra, Ghana, Pate challenged existing frameworks that reduced global health to a narrow set of diseases or priorities largely shaped by external narratives.

He said global health is often described through the lens of a few priority issues, like HIV, malaria and tuberculosis, or through specific areas such as health financing or maternal and child health.

“Yet these issues are framed by externally driven perspectives, leaving African voices, especially from poorer countries, less acknowledged,” he said.

The minister explained that most health progress in lower-income countries over the past 25 years has depended on domestic financing and local leadership, with donor support playing a complementary role.

He warned that shifting geopolitics and nationalist tendencies demand a recalibration.

“We cannot build healthier populations purely on the generosity of other nations. It is time to define our path, rooted in sovereignty and aligned with local needs,” he said.

He traced the evolution of global health to two contrasting legacies.

“The first is the positive legacy of 19th-century international sanitary cooperation, which laid the foundation for today’s collaborative institutions.

“The second is the colonial legacy, rooted in tropical medicine and neo-colonial economic structures, issues that were powerfully critiqued by Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah,” he said.