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Zambia is close to resolving a months-long dispute with the US over a proposed health agreement, the African nation’s foreign minister told Semafor. Mulambo Haimbe said Washington had agreed to remove contentious data-sharing provisions. The US State Department has not publicly confirmed the change.
The US has struck health agreements with African nations that involve sharing data with Washington about pathogens that could spark epidemics in their countries as a condition of getting the funding.
Haimbe said the two sides had also agreed to drop a disputed linkage between the health agreement and a separate critical-minerals deal, another point of contention that Zambia had raised publicly earlier this year.
“I believe that it has now been agreed that those provisions be replaced completely,” Haimbe said of the data terms. “The linking, the coupling of the critical minerals agreement with the health assistance … has also been set aside.”
Haimbe said the revised agreement was now at a stage where the two sides could sign it. The comments come after Haimbe met US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Chris Kulukundis in New York this week on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. A statement from Zambia said the two countries had reaffirmed their strategic partnership and agreed to deepen cooperation in health, investment and critical minerals, but did not mention the disputed provisions or confirm that they had been removed.
The proposed agreement would provide US health assistance to Zambia over five years for a proposed grant valued around at $1.5 billion, with the US contributing just over $1 billion.
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The dispute became public earlier this year as Washington sought to negotiate new health agreements with African governments that tied US assistance to commitments on health systems, data and other areas.
Zambia objected to provisions covering the use of health data and also resisted Washington’s effort to link the health agreement to cooperation on critical minerals. Haimbe said in May that the two agreements should be treated separately.
The disagreement came as Zambia was seeking to attract more investment into its copper and other critical-minerals industries while maintaining longstanding economic ties with China and developing closer commercial relations with the US.
Haimbe told Semafor that Zambia wants to work with both countries without giving either preferential treatment. “Me being in Beijing does not mean that I’m against Washington and vice versa,” he said.