Ghana Rejects Proposed U.S. Health Aid Deal, Citing Data Concerns

Ghana has rejected a bilateral health deal with the U.S, the latest stumbling block to the Trump administration’s effort to overhaul foreign aid, a source ‌familiar with the negotiations said.

Authorities however balked at terms requiring the sharing of sensitive health data, the source added.

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.

However, the U.S. Agency for International Development was dismantled earlier this year.

Spokespeople for Ghana’s foreign ministry and government did not respond to requests for comment.

The U.S. State Department said that it does not disclose details of bilateral negotiations.

“We continue to look for ways to strengthen the bilateral partnership between our two countries,” a spokesperson said.

According to government foreign assistance data, the U.S. has disbursed 219 million dollars in foreign assistance to ‌Ghana, ⁠including 96 million dollars specifically for health, for 2024, the year before the Trump administration’s cuts to foreign aid.

The deal that the two sides started negotiating last November would have called for $109 million in U.S. assistance for health over five years, the source said.

It was ​unclear how much Ghana ​would have been expected ⁠to pay.

“They were pretty normal dealings and negotiations in the beginning, and then increasingly there was a lot more pressure, especially at the end,” the ​source said.

Washington then set April 24 as the deadline to conclude the ​negotiations, and ⁠Accra decided it could not agree to what was being proposed, the source said.

Ghana has communicated its position to the Trump administration, the source said.

As of Monday, the State Department had signed 32 deals under ⁠the “America ​First Global Health Strategy” representing 20.6 billion dollars in funding, made up ​of 12.8 billion dollars from the U.S. and 7.8 billion dollars in “co-investment from recipient countries”, the State Department spokesperson said.

Washington expects additional Memorandums of Understanding to be signed in the near future, the spokesperson said.

Source: News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)