Partners In Health Opposes Extractive U.S. Health-Financing Agreements

Partners In Health (PIH) vehemently opposes new extractive conditions being written into global health-financing agreements by the United States State Department. These memoranda of understanding (MOUs) clarify exactly what an "America First Global Health Strategy" looks like:

• Prioritization of U.S. commercial interests over human life by withholding health funding in exchange for minerals and data.
• Massive cuts to U.S. global health funding over the next five years - regardless of continued appropriations from the U.S. Congress.
• Establishing unachievable conditions to co-financing that manufacture failure.

The near destruction of U.S. foreign assistance that began in early 2025 is projected to cause up to 22.6 million deaths by 2030, depending on the scale of defunding. For more than a year, governments and organizations around the world have been scrambling to triage a widening crisis with dwindling resources.

The U.S. State Department, by making health funding conditional on U.S. access to resources in these MOUs, is turning the sick into leverage. In Zambia, the provision of HIV medications for 1.3 million people has been made conditional on opening access to the country's mines. This is not partnership, it is extortion. As wealth is extracted, countries are left more vulnerable, indebted, and dependent on the very funding being withheld.

PIH CEO Dr. Sheila Davis says, "These MOUs flagrantly prioritize profit over people's lives, worsening unjust systems and robbing people of their right to health. The five countries in which PIH works in Africa stand to lose one billion dollars in health funding over the next five years. The scale of suffering that will be caused by that shortfall is staggering and completely preventable."

In Malawi, where PIH has worked since 2007, a persistent dry spell worsened by climate change has pushed 4 million people into food insecurity. In January, Malawi signed an MOU with the U.S. Government that will cut U.S. contributions to national health funding by a third, citing a lack of "U.S. national interests" in the country and compounding an already dire situation. PIH is working alongside the Ministry of Health to strengthen the health system in the country as well as deliver food and social support to those who need it most, but it will not be enough to stem the tide of the suffering to come.

PIH was founded in 1987 to challenge a global health establishment that often wrote off treating the world's poor as unsustainable, a sunken investment. In the nearly four decades since, extraordinary progress has been made to localize expertise and resources, strengthen health systems, and increase access to drugs and services. PIH will not stand by as progress and lives are lost. PIH will continue to fight for the right to health - for all people, everywhere, today and into the future.

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Partners In Health is a non-profit global health organization founded in 1987 that works to provide high-quality care to those who need it most and to strengthen local health systems in partnership with national governments and local institutions. PIH's approach emphasizes social justice, equity, long-term partnership, and comprehensive care to improve health outcomes and address structural barriers to health. As of today, PIH runs programs across four continents, where it provides direct care to millions of patients, through public facilities and community engagement.