By Simon Lewis
WASHINGTON, Dec 4 – The U.S. will provide more than $1.6 billion to Kenya’s health system under a new five-year agreement signed on Thursday, the first such agreement reached under the Trump administration’s overhaul of foreign aid.
The administration in September announced a new “America First Global Health Strategy” that calls for poorer nations to play a bigger role in fighting HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and polio in their countries and eventually transition from aid to self-reliance.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Kenyan President William Ruto signed an agreement on the bilateral compact in which Kenya pledged to increase its own health spending by $850 million over the five years. Other African countries are expected to sign similar deals in the coming days, U.S. officials said.
The new U.S. model for global health follows the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development earlier this year.
The U.S. provided $440 million to health and population programs in Kenya in 2024, the year before the Trump administration’s cuts to foreign aid, according to government foreign assistance data, the majority of it – $310 million – going to tackle HIV/AIDS.
Rubio said the new approach would move funding from what he called the “NGO industrial complex,” which he said took a disproportionate share of U.S aid intended to help patients.
“We’re not doing this anymore,” he said at the signing ceremony on Thursday.
The health compact will move U.S. funding from non-governmental groups to the Kenyan government, which would gradually take responsibility for health workers initially funded by the U.S. It also calls for faith-based providers to be treated the same as private providers in receiving government reimbursement.
Rubio also thanked Kenya for its role leading a gang suppression force in Haiti and called for more countries to contribute to bringing stability to the Caribbean nation.
Ruto echoed that call on Haiti and praised the Trump administration’s health initiative while also crediting past U.S. assistance with saving millions of Kenyan lives.
“I assure you that every shilling and every dollar will be spent efficiently, effectively, and accountably,” Ruto said.
(Reporting by Simon Lewis; Editing by Paul Simao)
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