The United States’ withdrawal from key aid programs has put healthcare in Africa and the global south “under growing strain” a new report warns.
The report says the Trump administration’s cuts to programs such as the US Agency for International Development (USAID), as well as the Covid-19 pandemic and rising costs of living globally have brought “new urgency” for the need to reform healthcare in the region, according to a Guardian report.
The report, titled A Sovereign Future For Health, was created by the Accra Reset, a global health initiative led by John Dramani Mahama, Ghana’s president, that believes countries in Africa and the wider global south should have greater control over their health development rather than being dependent on aid from western countries and international institutions.
The report cites how abrupt changes to global health financing, such as the US withdrawal from several global health initiatives, forced countries within the global south to urgently restructure their finances. The report points to the Trump administration’s decision to dissolve USAID, which pushed Nigeria to absorb the 28,000 health workers who were previously employed by the agency at a cost of $200m.
Clinics closed
The withdrawal of the US Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) funding for South Africa, which provided over $400m a year annually and is credited with saving 26m lives globally since 2003, led to HIV clinics closing across the country. Such funding cuts caused “severe and devastating” disruption globally, according to research presented at the 26th International Aids Conference in Brazil earlier this year.
At the World Health Assembly in May, Mahama said Ghana lost $78m after the closure of USAID programs which affected maternal healthcare, the treatment of malaria, nutrition and HIV/ Aids interventions.
