Ghana has rejected a bilateral health deal with the United States, citing “unhealthy concerns” about terms requiring the sharing of sensitive health data with American counterparts.
A highly placed source with knowledge about the subject confirmed to the Daily Graphic that Ghana declined the deal on the basis of the terms.
The source said the country could not agree to share information as sensitive as health data about the citizenry with a foreign nation.
Read also: Ghana rejects proposed US health aid deal, citing data concerns – Reuters report
Ghana, the source stressed, had since communicated its decision to the United States government.
The United States announced a new “America First Global Health Strategy” in September last year, just over eight months since the return to office of President Donald Trump.
The new strategy 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 United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was eventually dismantled earlier this year.
Ghana’s posture
The posturing of Ghana’s authorities on the matter is the latest challenge to the United States’ effort to transform its foreign aid.
The deal, for which negotiations between the two countries had started in November 2025, would have called for $109 million in United States assistance to Ghana for health over a five-year period.
The United States has disbursed $219 million in foreign assistance to Ghana, including $96 million specifically for health for 2024, the year before the current United States government’s cuts to foreign aid, government foreign assistance data have shown.
The source said what started as normal negotiations changed with time as pressure began to mount over specific terms.
The United States is said to have set April 24, 2026 as deadline to conclude the negotiations on the deal.
In the end, Ghanaian officials decided that they could not agree to the terms of the proposal.
Other cases
The United States is not new to this posturing by African nations especially.
Similar negotiations with Zimbabwe collapsed earlier this year, while a court in Kenya suspended the implementation of the country’s deal with the United States pending the hearing of a case filed by a consumer protection group on the matter.
International news outlet, Reuters, reported yesterday that the United States State Department said it did not disclose details of bilateral negotiations when the news organisation contacted the State Department for comment.
“We continue to look for ways to strengthen the bilateral partnership between our two countries,” it quoted a spokesperson to have said.
As of last Monday, the State Department of the United States had signed 32 deals under the “America First Global Health Strategy” representing $20.6 billion in funding, made up of $12.8 billion from the United States and $7.8 billion in “co-investment from recipient countries”, the State Department spokesperson told Reuters.
Source:
www.graphic.com.gh