It’s just been revealed that President Trump is replacing the former and corrupt USAID with a new initiative designed to still get money to foreign governments and institutions, without going through the “NGO industrial complex”.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is heading up the new America First Global Health Strategy, and has already signed up countries and will be signing up more in the coming months.
Here’s the report from Newsmax:
The Trump administration is starting an $11 billion global health initiative designed to replace the U.S. Agency for International Development with a model that sends aid directly to foreign governments and health institutions, Axios reported.
The initiative, dubbed the America First Global Health Strategy, would bypass nongovernmental organizations that previously worked through USAID and instead direct funding straight to foreign governments, hospitals, and pharmaceutical suppliers.
The U.S. will commit $11.1 billion under the plan to participating countries. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has signed 15 agreements with African countries whose goal is to improve their health systems with an emphasis on HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and maternal health.
The State Department’s goal is to have 50 countries signed on within a few months.
The system, Rubio said, replaces the “NGO industrial complex” that diverted about 70% of U.S. funding to Washington-area middlemen and bureaucrats, a claim former USAID officials contest.
“They built parallel healthcare, flying a bunch of American workers out there to treat people,” Jeremy Lewin, undersecretary of state for foreign assistance, told Axios.
“Yes, you made progress, but it stalled, and you never built durability or self-reliance in these African governments because they had this parallel system.”
Lewin said USAID fostered a “neo-colonial mindset” of “the white man has to do it.”
The new plan will do more to help developing nations strengthen their healthcare capacity, Lewin said.