Zambia is set to sign a revamped US$1.5 billion health assistance agreement with the United States. Washington has agreed to drop clauses that tied healthcare funding to access to Zambian health data and to the country’s copper and critical minerals.

The breakthrough came in bilateral talks on the sidelines of the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Minister Mulambo Haimbe met US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Chris Kulukundis, and Washington has since fully decoupled the two agreements.

After the talks, Mr Haimbe confirmed that the disputed terms were gone. “I believe that it has now been agreed that those provisions be replaced completely,” he said. He added that the link between minerals and medicine had also been broken: “The linking, the coupling of the critical minerals agreement with the health assistance… has also been set aside.”

The standoff lasted months and became public earlier this year, when Lusaka rejected an initial five-year, US$2 billion aid package. The Government objected to two conditions in that offer. One demanded unrestricted access to domestic pathogen-tracking data. The other tied the health package to preferential access for American corporations to Zambia’s copper and critical mineral sectors.

Mr Haimbe said the data terms crossed a line the Government would not accept. “The terms regarding data sharing would have violated our citizens’ right to privacy. We maintained that health assistance must be based on humanitarian cooperation, not commercial extraction,” he said.

Zambia is expanding its mining ties with both Western nations and China and has refused to give either side preferential leverage through its public health needs. The minister presented that stance as independence, not hostility towards either partner. “Me being in Beijing does not mean that I’m against Washington, and vice versa,” he said.

With the data-sharing and mineral clauses removed, the revised US$1.5 billion grant has been finalised and cleared for immediate signing. The US will contribute more than US$1 billion directly. The money will go towards stabilising frontline health centres, maternal health networks and infectious disease clinics.

The deal was secured during the same General Assembly session at which Mr Haimbe delivered Zambia’s national statement on behalf of President Hakainde Hichilema, under the theme “Restoring Trust, Managing Transformation”. In that address, the minister told world leaders that, for Zambia, trust begins with keeping promises and honouring international agreements.

He said the voices of developing countries must matter “in word and in deed”, and that the global system must not protect the interests of the powerful at the expense of the vulnerable. He also invited cooperating partners to back Zambia’s development priorities under the Grow Zambia Agenda, naming health among them.

The revised agreement, without the data and minerals provisions, now awaits signature. Once it is signed, more than US$1 billion from Washington will flow into frontline health services on terms Lusaka has accepted.

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