Continuing to Deliver on the America First Global Health Strategy with the Signing of the United States-Rwanda Bilateral Health Cooperation Memorandum of Understanding

Today in Washington, Jeremy Lewin, Senior Official, Under Secretary for Foreign Assistance, Humanitarian Affairs, and Religious Freedom and Olivier Nduhungirehe, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation signed the Department of State's second bilateral health cooperation Memorandum of Understanding, between the United States and Rwanda. The five-year, $228 million arrangement outlines a comprehensive vision to save lives, strengthen Rwanda's health system, and make America safer, stronger, and more prosperous.  

Over the last few years, Rwanda has made significant progress addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic and strengthening its own healthcare system and institutions. In particular, Rwanda is one of a handful of countries that has reached the 95-95-95 goals for epidemic control of HIV/AIDS. This partnership builds on that progress by moving away from parallel NGO delivery systems, investing in cutting-edge health infrastructure, fostering greater national ownership over health delivery systems and frontline workers, and putting Rwanda on an accelerated path to a more durable, responsive, and sustainable health system, including Rwanda taking over full control of its HIV/AIDS response by year four of the partnership.

Under the arrangement, working with Congress, the United States intends to provide up to $158 million over the next five years to support Rwanda's efforts to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other infectious diseases, and to bolster disease surveillance and outbreak response. In turn, the Government of Rwanda plans to increase its own domestic health investment by $70 million, taking on greater financial responsibility as U.S. support is gradually reduced over the years.

This partnership also helps further American commercial interest in Rwanda and Africa more broadly. For example, the agreement builds on the Department's landmark November 2025 award to Zipline International Inc. to support the construction of American-made advanced robotics for the delivery of life-saving medical products. Under the terms of that award, Rwanda, the earliest adopter of Zipline's technology in Africa, will be responsible for operating and maintaining the cutting-edge supply infrastructure funded by U.S. assistance. In addition, the arrangement includes $10 million of funding for American technology company Ginkgo Bioworks to expand their disease outbreak surveillance in Rwanda, which establishes a biothreat radar system that will help monitor potential outbreaks in the broader region. The arrangement also outlines several health areas where Rwanda is interested in additional U.S. private sector partnership and investment including developing next generation HIV treatments and deploying artificial intelligence (AI) for healthcare. Today's framework reaffirms the strong U.S.-Rwanda bilateral relationship, and both countries' commitment to safeguarding health gains and supporting a health assistance architecture that eliminates dependency, ideology and waste - saving U.S. taxpayer dollars and delivering better and more durable health outcomes.

The United States will continue to sign multi-year Bilateral Agreements on Global Health Cooperation with dozens of countries receiving U.S. health assistance in the coming weeks to advance our America First Global Health Strategy.

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