Ghana rejected a proposed health deal with the United States over concerns that the arrangement would have let U.S. entities access sensitive Ghanaian health information without sufficient safeguards, an official said May 1. The executive director of Ghana’s Data Protection Commission, Arnold Kavaarpuo, said the requested access would have extended farther than what he described as typical requirements and would have included the wider data functions used to manage and report health information.
Kavaarpuo said the scope of access contemplated in the draft agreement “went far beyond what would typically be required,” adding that it encompassed not only health data sets but also “metadata, dashboards, reporting tools, data models and data dictionaries.” He described the resulting structure as effectively outsourcing Ghana’s health-data architecture to a foreign body, saying the arrangement “looked at access not only to health data sets, but also” to those related tools and records.
He also said the proposed deal would have included a model in which as many as 10 U.S. entities could access the sensitive data without prior approval from Ghana for whatever access was needed. In his view, Ghana would have been notified only after an exercise was undertaken, rather than having a prior approval mechanism. “We did not get a sense that Ghana had any real governance oversight when it came to how the data was going to be utilized,” he said, describing the concept as not “a prior approval arrangement.”
Kavaarpuo said Ghana communicated its rejection to the United States and sought improved conditions for a better agreement. He described one caveat under which individuals could be identified where deemed necessary for sensitive health data, but the commission official argued that the overall access framework presented governance risks for Ghana.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson told The Associated Press that the department does not disclose details of bilateral negotiations and said, speaking on condition of anonymity, that “We continue to look for ways to strengthen the bilateral partnership between our two countries.” The spokesperson did not provide additional specifics about what the U.S. had proposed in the talks.
The rejected Ghana deal was described as being worth around $300 million, with Kavaarpuo saying Ghana would have received about $109 million in U.S. funding over five years, alongside supplemental investments from Ghana. The proposal reflected a broader U.S. approach under President Donald Trump’s administration to global health funding that the Associated Press described as “America First,” with the U.S. striking such deals with more than 30 countries, most of them in Africa.
The Associated Press report said other countries have questioned or rejected similar agreements over data access, privacy and sovereignty concerns. In February, authorities in Zimbabwe rejected a proposed deal over issues around health data, fairness and sovereignty, the report said, while Zambia was also described as having pushed back on a section of its deal though no final decision had been made.
In the background, activists in Africa have raised concerns that the agreements often lack adequate safeguards for the use of health data and can affect which groups receive support. The report also said Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director General Jean Kaseya had cited “huge concerns” about data sharing in remarks to reporters about the deals.