President John Dramani Mahama has opened his engagements on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly (UNGA81) with a meeting in New York with Alex Soros, Chairman of the Open Society Foundations (OSF), focused on mobilising international philanthropic support for ECOWAS integration.
The meeting, held on Sunday, September 20, 2026, marked the start of a week of intensive diplomacy for President Mahama, who is positioning Ghana as a bridge between the global philanthropic community and West Africa’s regional integration agenda.
Mr Soros, an investor and philanthropist who succeeded his father, George Soros, as OSF chair in 2023, has previously engaged with President Mahama. The two met in Ghana in July 2025 to discuss economic recovery, democratic governance and regional stability, with Mr Soros expressing interest in supporting deeper regional integration efforts.
Sunday’s discussion focused on OSF’s interest in exploring partnerships and providing support for ECOWAS’ integration efforts. It was also a precursor to a planned presidential roundtable being coordinated by the Foundation with a select group of global foundation presidents and CEOs, including Gates, Ford, OSF, Hewlett Packard, Hilton, Rockefeller, Humanity United, Anglo American, Chandler and UBS Optimus.
The roundtable, expected on Monday, September 21, will give President Mahama a platform to engage philanthropic leaders on partnerships for development and regional integration priorities. According to sources, the President is expected to call for a fundamental shift in how international partners support developing countries—moving from short-term programmes to long-term capability building, while urging foundations to use their unique flexibility to fund public goods and institutional capacity where commercial finance cannot.
OSF, one of the world’s largest philanthropic networks, has a multi-billion-dollar endowment and has recently expanded its Africa programming around democratic governance, economic advancement and peacebuilding. Its potential entry into West Africa’s integration architecture could bring critical resources for institutional capacity, governance and economic development—areas that have historically been underfunded relative to the scale of the region’s challenges.
The focus on ECOWAS comes at a critical moment for the regional bloc, which faces climate change, geopolitical tensions, food shortages and slow progress toward macroeconomic convergence for its proposed single currency, the Eco. President Mahama has been a consistent advocate for deeper regional cooperation. At the 69th ECOWAS Summit in July 2026, he called on member states to move beyond policy commitments to the effective implementation of regional decisions that directly improve citizens’ lives. He has also played a key diplomatic role in rebuilding trust between ECOWAS and the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), comprising Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.
President Mahama’s UNGA81 schedule includes two high-level side events: one on September 21 on the “Accra Reset” under the theme “Full Circle: Making Global Development Work Again,” and another on September 23 on reparatory justice, focusing on international cooperation for the return and restitution of cultural properties and heritage. He is scheduled to deliver Ghana’s statement during the General Debate on Thursday, September 24, and will hold a town hall meeting with the Ghanaian diaspora in New York on September 25.
The 81st session is being held under the theme, “Restoring Trust, Managing Transformation: A United Nations that Delivers for All,” and runs from September 18 to 28, 2026. President Mahama is accompanied by First Lady Mrs Lordina Dramani Mahama, Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, other Cabinet Ministers and senior officials from the Presidency.
