Pushback against US funding for minerals, data deals

There is growing anger over a series of bilateral health agreements being negotiated between the US and African countries, reports africa news. The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has said that there is particular concern around data governance and pathogen sharing. Its director-general, Jean Kaseya, warned that African countries could be required to share sensitive pathogen and health data with the US as a condition of receiving funding. This would not, however, guarantee that resulting vaccines, diagnostics, or treatments would be equitably accessible to the countries that provided the data. His remarks follow pushback from several African governments. Last week, Zimbabwe pulled out of talks on a proposed $367m US health agreement. Zambia has also delayed signing its agreement, questioning the terms. The Trump administration is pursuing these bilateral health deals as part of its America First global health strategy, following the dismantling of most of its development agency, USAID. However, at least 17 African countries are believed to have signed deals so far with the US, collectively securing $11.3bn in aid. But there are deep concerns over the concessions they made to Washington in return – including some that are unrelated to health. In Nigeria, for example, is appears that funding is contingent on authorities tackling what Trump refers to as the persecution of Christians in the country. Meanwhile Zambia’s deal reportedly involves US access to its strategic mining resources. The deals also commit African nations to rely on US regulatory approval of new drugs and technologies before rolling them out.

According to The Guardian, the series of bilateral agreements have been labelled ‘clearly lop-sided’ and ‘immoral’ amid growing outrage at US demands, including countries being forced to share biological resources and data. In Kenya, the first country to sign a deal, a court case brought by campaigners over data sharing terms has put the agreement on hold. The Consumer Federation of Kenya (Cofek), one of the groups bringing the case, said Kenya risked “ceding strategic control of its health systems if pharmaceuticals for emerging diseases and digital infrastructure (including cloud-storage of raw data) are externally controlled”. Uganda’s Attorney-General, Kiryowa Kiwanuka, sought to downplay similar fears about his country’s deal in an interview hosted on X, saying it was 'not true' that citizens’ health data and privacy was at risk. 'We have our data protection and privacy law, and the agreement is riddled with that,' he said. One reproductive and gender justice campaigner in Uganda questioned whether the increased domestic funding targets were realistic, given African governments’ failure to meet the 2001 Abuja declaration’s 15% minimum national budget allocation to health. She said there had been 'no public participation' in the negotiation process, and NGOs were expected to be further sidelined. Specialist clinics offering care to marginalised groups such as the LGBTQ+ community were unlikely to see funding 'trickle down' to them, she said. In Nigeria, according to a US embassy statement, the agreement for $2.1bn of US funding 'places a strong emphasis on Christian faith-based healthcare providers'. Fadekemi Akinfaderin of Fòs Feminista wrote on Substack that 'singling out one religious group in a deeply plural country risks inflaming existing tensions and politicising health'.

Zimbabwe has rejected a proposed $350m health funding agreement with the US after President Emmerson Mnangagwa ordered an end to negotiations over what Harare described as a deal compromising national sovereignty, reports CGTN. Washington had presented the memorandum of understanding as the basis for future health assistance under its America First Global Health Strategy. However, Zimbabwean officials said several provisions were unacceptable. Among their concerns was a US request for direct access to Zimbabwe's health data for a specified period – a provision Harare viewed as excessive and intrusive. The US had also sought access to Zimbabwe's critical mineral resources, which formed part of the broader arrangement, further raising objections. Officials argued that entering into a bilateral health framework with Washington would contradict the country’s commitment to multilateral co-operation, particularly following the US withdrawal from the World Health Organisation under the Trump administration. Establishing a parallel bilateral mechanism, Harare said, would effectively endorse Washington’s departure from the global health system. The rejection comes amid broader US foreign aid cuts, including those affecting Zimbabwe’s health programmes. In turn, the US says it is ending its health aid programmes in Zimbabwe, reports Moneyweb. ‘We will now turn to the difficult and regrettable task of winding down our health assistance in Zimbabwe,’ Pamela Tremont, the US Ambassador to Zimbabwe, said. ‘The Government of Zimbabwe has assured us it is prepared to sustain the fight against HIV/AIDS, and we wish them well.’

Meanwhile, Zambia, too, has pushed back on part of a deal worth more than $1bn in global health aid from the US because it does not align with the country’s interests, the government has said, as health advocates warned the deal links the money to mining access and has data-sharing risks. According to TimesLIVE, the deal governs more than $1bn of US funding to tackle conditions like HIV and malaria, as well as improve disease outbreak preparedness and maternal and child health, over the next five years. It also requires about $340m in co-financing from the Zambian Government over the same period, according to a draft of the agreement reviewed by Reuters. The deal was due to be signed in November, but had been delayed after revised drafts included a problematic section, a Zambian Ministry of Health spokesperson said. That section ‘did not align with the position and interests of the Government of Zambia ... We have therefore requested further revisions to the content in question’, the spokesperson said, declining to elaborate on what the content covered. Zambia is Africa’s second-largest copper producer after the DRC, and also has cobalt, nickel, manganese, graphite, lithium and rare-earth elements. Health advocates in both countries said the data-sharing agreement in the draft, which was due to last for 10 years, was also problematic, and raised concerns over the secrecy surrounding the negotiations.