The May 1 announcement makes Ghana the latest African nation to walk away from a bilateral health deal under the Trump administration’s “America First Global Health Strategy.” According to Arnold Kavaarpuo, executive director of Ghana’s Data Protection Commission, the proposed deal included provisions that would have granted U.S. entities unprecedented access to sensitive national health data.
At the heart of the collapse is a disagreement over the scope of data sharing. Ghanaian officials claim the U.S. requested access that “went far beyond what would typically be required” for public health monitoring.
Furthermore, officials pointed to a significant lack of governance oversight within the agreement’s framework. Kavaarpuo noted that the arrangement was structured such that the U.S. would merely notify the country after undertaking data exercises rather than seeking permission. He warned that the language, as written, effectively amounted to “outsourcing the health data architecture of the country to a foreign body.”
Ghana’s withdrawal follows a growing pattern of pushback against the new U.S. health aid framework, which replaces previous programs under the dismantled United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Jean Kaseya, director general of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has previously expressed “huge concerns” regarding the transparency and data-sharing requirements embedded in these new bilateral agreements.
The U.S. State Department declined to provide specifics on the negotiations but stated, “We continue to look for ways to strengthen the bilateral partnership between our two countries.”
Source: Black Enterprise
