Zimbabwe said ‘nah’ to US$367 million

Issue #403: This week, I'm looking at why Zimbabwe rejected US$367 million in U.S. health funding. At first, it seems simple: A rich country offered a poor country desperately needed money, but only under new conditions Zimbabwe considered deeply unfair. What are the effects of a country defending its sovereignty? As always, it's not quite black and white.

Also this week: No more social media in Equatorial Guinea, what people think about democracy in the Americas, Russian soldiers within the army in Myanmar, a Brazilian scholar on far-right memes, a very emotional Syrian superstar homecoming, and so much more.

Editorial closing date: Sunday, September 27, 2026. This newsletter has been edited by Jonathan Ramsay.

The U.S. will end funding for health programs in Zimbabwe by the end of September

Refresher: For many years, the U.S. paid a lot of money for medicines, clinics, healthcare workers, and disease-prevention programs elsewhere (countries do this not for charity, but for their own benefit; the U.S. was, and still is, the biggest spender worldwide). However, when President Trump returned to office in January 2025, his administration was like, 'hold up, we have to check how much foreign aid is costing us exactly.'

It then came up with a new approach, called the "America First Global Health Strategy." It's not a hard stop to all foreign aid, but the current administration wants the U.S. to pay much less and wants recipient countries to take over more of the cost. Under this strategy, the U.S. negotiates a separate "partnership agreement," directly with each government. Most last three to five years. The exact conditions differ from country to country, but they can include 'this is how much you need to spend so you get the full amount of U.S. funding' and possible penalties if a country misses those targets, access to health data, buying more from U.S. companies, etc. So far, 35 countries have signed agreements, most of them in Africa. The full texts are not publicly available in every case, which makes it difficult to compare all the conditions properly. Zimbabwe is one of the countries that said, "Nah, not under those terms."

What happened:
The United States offered Zimbabwe a new five-year health "partnership agreement" worth about US$367 million, but attached conditions Zimbabwe considered 'nah'. The U.S. then said, 'fine, we're out then', and decided not to renew its existing health programs after September 30, 2026.

Why this matters: Zimbabwe is one of the first countries to face the consequences of the new U.S. strategy of tying health aid to "partnership agreements." With less and less development money coming in to support Africa in general, in recent years, critics are saying, 'You cannot destroy much of the existing system first, then give very poor countries only three to five years to replace billions of dollars.'

Tell me more:
The money would have supported a lot (the U.S. has been Zimbabwe's biggest health donor for decades). There's now less money coming in for HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention, tuberculosis and malaria programs, maternal and child health, laboratories and disease surveillance, and preparation for future outbreaks.

The new U.S. strategy also expected Zimbabwe to pitch in more and more of its own money, so that they would no longer be dependent on U.S. support in the future. 'We've given Zimbabwe almost US$2 billion in health assistance since 2006,' the U.S. said.

Why did Zimbabwe reject it?
The conditions to that proposed "partnership" seemed a bit icky to Zimbabwe's government. The central dispute was access to health information and biological materials. According to Zimbabwe's government, the U.S. wanted more access to epidemiological information, sensitive health data about Zimbabwean citizens, virus samples, and other biological resources.

Zimbabwe was like, 'okay, and what would we get in return?' The "partnership" did not guarantee any access to vaccines, diagnostic tools, or treatments subsequently developed using the Zimbabwean data. The U.S. position is that 'sharing is caring. It's good to know these things so we can all be a bit safer.' However, the agreement did not mention that the U.S. would share their health data with Zimbabwe, too. 'How fair is that?' asks Zimbabwe's President Mnangagwa.

BTW: The entire agreement is not publicly available. Both governments have talked about it here.

My take: It's easy to paint a very black-and-white picture here: U.S. bad, Zimbabwe sovereign. Many different things could be true at the same time. The U.S. may be exercising neocolonial power here although its funding still accomplished some good, while Zimbabwe's own government may have failed to build a health system that is capable of resisting that pressure. And perhaps Zimbabwe may have had limited room to become self-sufficient because colonial extraction did not end with independence. And still, rejecting or accepting an unfair agreement can harm ordinary people.

How does Zimbabwean media talk about this?
The Herald frames this decision: 'Zimbabwe protected its sovereignty.'

The Zimbabwe Independent is more critical: 'Sure, there were legitimate concerns, but walking away was dangerous. You put millions of Zimbabwean lives at risk.'

Good to know: Technically, all of this health data sharing could be organized and managed through something that already exists: the World Health Organization. But the U.S. withdrew from the WHO in January 2026, so they're now looking to strike more country-to-country-access deals instead.

What does "funding will end" actually mean?
It doesn't mean that all hell will break loose on October 1. Zimbabwe still has medicine, and its support system isn't reliant on the U.S. only. But this "will trigger a public health catastrophe," says Asia Russel, executive director of Health GAP, an international advocacy group. The U.S. paid for much more than the medicines themselves. It also supported the staff who test patients, laboratories that monitor treatment, and much else.

Dig deeper: Interruptions in HIV care are particularly dangerous. One U.S.-funded HIV project, for example,...