"Across Africa, countries have faced similar dilemmas as the U.S. has held a series of closed-door negotiations in which lifesaving aid has been conditioned on access to citizens’ health data. The negotiations come in the wake of the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which — in contrast with the new contracts — provided billions of dollars in aid with few strings attached. Officials in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Ghana have been so outraged by the demands that they rejected the initial deals.
The demand to access health data is central to the Trump administration’s new America First Global Health Strategy, an openly transactional approach that seeks to leverage the desperate need for medical treatments abroad. Aid will now be given “in a way that directly benefits the American people and directly promotes our national interest,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated in September.
The State Department declined to publicly release global aid and data-sharing agreements it has signed with more than 30 countries as part of its new approach. But a ProPublica analysis of nine of the deals offers a window into the extensive U.S. demands for access to data — and the potential risks and vulnerabilities for the citizens of countries that have signed them. ProPublica also reviewed a data-sharing agreement struck with Uganda, which has not previously been reported; a data agreement with Kenya; six agreements over the sharing of pathogens that can cause pandemics that were made public by the State Department this week; generic templates of deals for sharing both data and pathogens that can cause pandemics; and an analysis of the documents the advocacy group Public Citizen shared exclusively with ProPublica."
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-state-department-africa-uganda-aid-medical-data-privacy
#USA #DigitalColonialism #Africa #Privacy #Uganda
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