Uganda will get up to $1.7bn (R28.8bn) of US funding for its health sector over the next five years, making it the latest African country to agree a pact with President Donald Trump’s administration since it overhauled its approach to foreign aid.
Kenya and Rwanda agreed to similar deals in recent days under Trump’s “America First Global Health Strategy”.
The strategy calls for poorer nations to play a bigger role in fighting infectious diseases in their countries and eventually transition from aid to self-reliance.
The US funds will support priority health programmes in Uganda on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, maternal and child health and polio among other things, the US embassy in Uganda said.
Uganda’s government will increase its own health expenditure by $500m (R8.4bn) “to gradually assume greater financial responsibility over the course of the framework”, its finance ministry said in a post on X.
“The collaboration will yield not only disease-specific outcomes but also significant improvements in national systems, institutions and workforce capacity,” finance minister Matia Kasaija said.
The US has been a major donor to Uganda’s health sector, but financial support has fallen this year after Trump cut the foreign aid budget and shuttered USAID.
Reuters
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