Zambia signs five-year health funding deal with US after data-sharing row
Zambia and the US have signed a five-year health financing memorandum in Lusaka, under which Washington will provide about $1.5bn. The text was revised after months of dispute over data sharing and access to minerals.
Zambia signed a five-year health financing agreement with the United States in Lusaka on Thursday, closing months of public argument over whether the country was exchanging citizens' medical data and mineral rights for aid. A separate data-sharing agreement was signed alongside the memorandum.
Under the memorandum, the US will provide roughly $1.5bn, with Zambia also contributing. Officials put the combined package for 2026 to 2030 at about $3.6bn, although figures for Zambia's share have varied. US funding is expected to decline over the five years as Zambia raises its domestic spending.
Disputes over data and minerals
A draft leaked earlier this year drew criticism from civil society groups, which said Zambia was accepting wider data-sharing terms than other African countries, including long-term access to pathogen information and specimens. The Chapter One Foundation, a human rights group, warned that the government risked "signing away" citizens' health data. Opposition figures and activists also pointed to reports that health money was tied to preferential access for US companies to Zambia's copper and other critical minerals. In May, Foreign Minister Mulambo Haimbe called the data terms a privacy violation, and the then-US ambassador, Michael Gonzales, rejected his account as false.
Health Minister Roma Chilengi said clauses requiring Zambia to send biological specimens to the US had been removed, and that the deal would not permit sharing of individual patient records. Data exchange would be limited to information needed to monitor and evaluate funded programmes.
Wider context
The money is meant to support work on HIV/Aids, tuberculosis, malaria, maternal and child health, disease surveillance and the wider health system, including recruitment of community health workers. The arrangement replaces support that for years flowed largely through US programmes.
After USAID was shut down, Washington has pursued similar deals with several African countries. Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda have signed, while Ghana and Zimbabwe rejected agreements over conditions on sharing data and specimens. Critics say the agency's closure affected the speed and scale of the response to the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The US denies this and points to the $270m it has donated to tackle the epidemic.
