Ghana rejects US foreign aid deal

Ghana is the latest African country to reject a bilateral health deal with the US, a source told Reuters, the latest stumbling block to the Trump administration’s effort to overhaul foreign aid. According to TimesLIVE, the government of President John Dramani Mahama baulked at terms requiring the sharing of sensitive health data. The same issue sank talks with Zimbabwe this year and also prompted a court to suspend implementation of Kenya’s deal pending the hearing of a case filed by a consumer protection group. Spokespeople for Ghana’s Foreign Ministry and government did not respond to requests for comment. The US State Department said it does not disclose details of bilateral negotiations. The Trump administration in September announced a new ‘America First Global Health Strategy’ that calls for poorer nations to play a bigger role in fighting HIV/Aids, malaria, tuberculosis and polio in their countries and eventually transition from aid to self-reliance. The US has disbursed $219m in foreign assistance to Ghana, including $96m specifically for health, for 2024, the year before the Trump administration’s cuts to foreign aid, according to government foreign assistance data. The deal the two sides started negotiating last November would have called for $109m in US assistance for health over five years, the source said. It was unclear how much Ghana would have been expected to pay. Washington then set 24 April as the deadline to conclude the negotiations, and Accra decided it could not agree to what was being proposed, the source said.

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