The Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana’s president, Pharm. Paul Owusu Donkor, stood in the courtyard of the Manhyia Palace in Kumasi, the historic seat of the Ashanti kingdom, and delivered a warning that cut through the ceremonial pleasantries of the Society’s 90th anniversary. “If we continue to rely on global supply chain systems for our medicines, then we are compromising on our national security issues,” he said. The setting, rich with the weight of tradition, lent an almost ancestral gravity to a very modern anxiety: Ghana produces only 30 per cent of its pharmaceutical needs, leaving it exposed to the whims of international markets and logistics.

That same week, across town in a university auditorium in Accra, researchers from the University of Professional Studies, Accra and the Narcotics Control Commission presented a baseline study on youth substance use in the La Nkwantanang-Madina Municipality. The numbers were stark: 45.1 per cent of young respondents had used a substance for non-medical or recreational purposes, with alcohol leading the list. Madina, a bustling suburb, recorded a lifetime prevalence of 73.5 per cent. The study, released on World Drug Day, revealed a paradox: 94.9 per cent of young people had heard about the dangers of substance abuse, yet awareness alone had not stemmed use. The drugs themselves—tramadol, codeine-based concoctions, cannabis—often arrive through the same porous supply chains that the pharmaceutical society decried.

Thousands of kilometres east, in the Bangladeshi district of Kurigram, a human chain formed outside the press club on the afternoon of 26 June. Similar scenes unfolded in Bagerhat, Faridpur, and Comilla, all organised by the Prothom Alo Trust. In Faridpur, a speaker’s voice carried over the crowd: “The government changes, but drug use and the drug trade do not change. If the supply of drugs is stopped, drug use will stop.” The refrain, echoed in Bengali across multiple towns, linked the local drug crisis to a failure of state control over supply lines—a sentiment that, viewed from Dhaka, reflects a broader frustration with the inability of institutions to shield communities from external harms.

The convergence of these anxieties—pharmaceutical dependency, youth substance abuse, and the erosion of donor-funded health systems—is reshaping policy conversations in West Africa. At a conference of the Christian Health Association of Ghana in Koforidua, a finance ministry advisor noted that declining overseas development assistance means Ghana “must increasingly finance our own development priorities.” The government has earmarked GH¢10.7 billion for the National Health Insurance Scheme in 2025, but the advisor stressed that innovation and private capital would be essential. CHAG, which runs 375 facilities and provides up to 40 per cent of healthcare services, is now seen as an indispensable partner in building a system less reliant on external goodwill.

The push for self-reliance is not confined to health. At Intersolar Europe in Munich, the Chinese energy firm CHINT showcased grid-resilience technologies designed for a continent grappling with the demands of AI and renewable integration. A company vice president observed that European power infrastructure is not keeping pace with demand, forcing customers to seek “integrated, reliable, and future-ready power solutions.” The language of resilience, whether applied to medicines, electricity, or the minds of the young, speaks to a shared recognition: dependency is a vulnerability. Back in Kumasi, as the Pharmaceutical Society’s anniversary event drew to a close, the palace walls seemed to absorb the warning. The question left hanging was not whether Ghana could produce 70 per cent of its own drugs, but whether it could afford not to.