DAR ES SALAAM, July 2 (Reuters) – The United States has signed a memorandum of understanding with Tanzania to invest more than $1.3 billion in its health sector over the next five years, the latest in a series of deals that have caused controversy in some African countries.
The agreement, signed late on Wednesday, is similar to those struck with countries including Rwanda, Kenya, and Uganda under U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First Global Health Strategy”, designed to make poorer nations more self-reliant as the U.S. has dismantled foreign aid programmes.
The pact says that in return for more than $1.3 billion in investment, Tanzania has committed to investing $1.8 billion in the health sector over the same period, according to a statement from the U.S. embassy in Tanzania.
“This joint investment reflects both countries’ commitment to preventing the spread of infectious diseases, and strengthening Tanzania’s capacity to finance, manage, and self-sustain essential health services,” the statement said.
In some countries the pacts have run into resistance over concerns about conditions like allowing access to minerals and sharing personal health data and bio materials.
Zambia has rejected demands that such a deal be tied to U.S. access to Zambian minerals while in Kenya a court in December suspended part of its deal until it hears a data privacy case filed by a consumer protection group.
Tanzanian Health Minister Mohamed Mchengerwa said the agreement did not include the sharing of laboratory samples with the U.S.
“We did not enter into a specimen-sharing agreement,” Mchengerwa said during the signing ceremony, according to a video on the health ministry’s Instagram account.
“Tanzania’s specimens including those of outbreak, epidemic and pandemics potential will be tested, stored and governed here in Tanzania,” he said.
(Reporting by Nuzulack Dausen; Writing by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by George Obulutsa and Aidan Lewis)
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