Driving Progress on the America First Global Health Strategy Through Bilateral Global Health MOU with Malawi

Under the America First Global Health Strategy, the United States is advancing a new model of global health assistance—one that prioritizes the protection of the American people from infectious disease threats while empowering recipient countries to achieve self-reliance and accountability within their national healthcare systems.  

Today, the United States and the Government of Malawi signed a five-year, $936 million bilateral health cooperation Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that sets a new course for national ownership, co-investment, and measurable results. Under the arrangement, working with Congress, the United States intends to provide up to $792 million over the next five years to support Malawi’s efforts to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other infectious diseases, and bolster disease surveillance and outbreak response.  Malawi will increase its overall annual health spending by an additional $143.8 million during the life of the MOU. The MOU is designed to leverage Malawi’s significant progress in addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic, supporting the country’s commitment to maintaining its 95-95-95 goals for epidemic control through sustainable, integrated service delivery approaches that the government will self-maintain after the MOU concludes.  

The MOU marks a critical shift away from parallel NGO delivery systems and the healthcare workforce structures they created, restoring responsibility for those resources to the national government. Under this new approach, Malawi will co-invest in a comprehensive range of health priorities—including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, maternal and child health, polio, and global health security—while supporting cutting-edge solutions such as digitalization to reach rural populations. This MOU will put Malawi on a path toward a more durable, responsive, and sustainable Malawian health system while ensuring Americans are protected from global health threats.