Zambia to sign controversial $1.5 billion health agreement with the United States (government)

Zambia will sign a health agreement with the United States on Thursday, which has long been blocked due to demands for data and mineral resources, the Zambian health minister announced on Tuesday.

More than a dozen countries have signed health aid contracts with the United States, including Rwanda, Uganda, Lesotho and Eswatini, since the Trump administration returned to power.

The agreement that Zambia, a copper-rich country in southern Africa, is preparing to initial provides for a contribution of "$1.5 billion" over five years from Washington, Health Minister Roma Chilengi said at a press conference.

Negotiations around this agreement, which is to be "signed Thursday at the Ministry of Finance", had been blocked for months due to objections from Zambia, which was then in the midst of a campaign for the re-election of President Hakainde Hichilema, who was sworn in for a second term on September 1.

"Disagreements arose concerning issues of data protection, intellectual property, profit sharing and samples taken. I am pleased to announce that they have all been taken into account and resolved," assured Roma Chilengi.

The other sticking point was the "linking of the proposed agreements and plans to one another," Zambian Foreign Minister Mulambo Haimbe denounced in May. "In such a way that the conclusion of the agreement on strategic raw materials is linked to that of the memorandum of understanding on health," he specified.

Roma Chilengi denied this on Tuesday: "As far as strategic minerals are concerned, I want to be categorical: the Ministry of Health has never seen any memorandum of understanding referring to strategic minerals," he asserted.

The version of the memorandum of understanding revealed by the NGO Health Gap in March, and consulted by AFP, stipulated that it would be "immediately terminated" and "all associated funding immediately suspended" if the participants fail to agree before April 1, 2026 on the bilateral agreement proposed by the US Secretary of State.

The American embassy had, moreover, fully accepted the transactional nature of the agreement by linking it to a "counterpart in terms of collaboration in the mining sector" in early December in a press release.

The contents of the health agreement will not be made public, Roma Chilengi stated. The previous version projected lower US spending than the newly announced amount: only one billion dollars at that time.