Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: UGANDA will get up to $1.7 billion of U.S. funding for its health sector over the next five years, making it the latest African country to agree a pact with the Trump administration since it overhauled its approach to foreign aid. Kenya and Rwanda agreed 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 selfreliance. The U.S. funds will support priority health programmes in Uganda on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, maternal and child health and polio amongst other things, the U.S. embassy in Uganda said in a statement.
The MOU contains a number of important and innovative provisions that will help facilitate long-term sustainability of Uganda’s health system including procurement of most commodities, mapping of frontline health workers currently funded by the U.S. Government to the cadres of health workers that can be employed by the Uganda Government and investment in data and disease surveillance systems.
The Uganda Government pledges to increase domestic health expenditures by more than $500 million to gradually assume greater financial responsibility over the course of the framework. The agreement includes support for faith-based healthcare providers in Uganda.
The Uganda Government with support from the U.S Government plans to support faith-based providers through a variety of mechanisms including performance-based service agreements, increased primary health care (PHC) grants, and support for digitization and community health insurance initiatives.
The U.S. funds will support priority health programmes in Uganda on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, maternal and child health and polio
“This 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 U.S. 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.
