U.S. Signs More Than $11 Billion in Health Compacts With 16 African Nations, Cuts Planned Aid

Over the past month the State Department has signed agreements with 16 African countries to provide more than $11 billion in health aid over the next five years, a effort meant to replace global health assistance that was previously channelled through the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The new commitments, however, represent steep reductions from past U.S. health funding in many countries. An analysis by Partners in Health shows funding under the agreements would fall by 69 percent to Rwanda, 61 percent to Madagascar, 42 percent to Liberia and 34 percent to Eswatini; U.S.

funding to Malawi will be cut by 35 percent and Kenya’s funding will decline by 20 percent. In Zambia, where negotiations are stalled, the proposed deal would cut health funding by more than 50 percent and would link access to U.S. health funding to a separate agreement on U.S. access to Zambia’s mineral resources.

The administration says the compacts follow its global health strategy and will require cofinancing commitments from partner governments and shift more funds directly to national governments while reducing the role of large nongovernmental “implementing partners.” Jeremy Lewin, acting under secretary of state for foreign assistance, called the agreements “the first phase of a reimagining of a failing and dysfunctional foreign aid system,” saying the prior system failed taxpayers, countries and patients.

Key Topics

World, U.s. State Department, Usaid, Rwanda, Madagascar, Zambia