Ghana and Guyana Chart a Post-Aid Path for Global Health

When the world's largest bilateral health funder disappeared almost overnight, two developing nations had a choice: scramble or build. At the Concordia Annual Summit on Sept. 23, 2026, the health ministers of Ghana and Guyana laid out how their countries chose the latter — pivoting to domestic financing, strategic partnerships, and technology to sustain health systems without guaranteed external support.

• Ghana and Guyana both shifted to domestic health financing after the 2025 collapse of USAID and broader aid contraction exposed dangerous dependencies
• Guyana's partnership with Mount Sinai delivered school health screenings for 100,000 children and new chronic disease guidelines — structured as capacity building, not outsourcing
• Ghana's president directed the finance minister to fill health funding gaps internally, establishing a policy that no health program should launch without domestic resources
• Both ministers urged upfront technology investment to create efficiencies and reinvest savings into health systems
• A four-step framework for self-sufficiency emerged: set priorities, cost them, secure sustainable funding, then invite partners

The basics: The 2025 end of USAID and a broader contraction of multilateral and bilateral health financing left countries worldwide scrambling to fill gaps in everything from disease surveillance to primary care delivery. This panel, moderated by Dr. Rachel Vreeman, Director, Arnhold Institute for Global Health, Mount Sinai, brought together Hon. Dr. Frank Anthony, Minister of Health, Cooperative Republic of Guyana, and Hon. Kwabena Minta-Akando, Minister of Health, Republic of Ghana, to discuss what comes next.