With the recent release of the America First Global Health Strategy (AFGHS), the United States set out a forward-looking vision for U.S. engagement in global health that is built around three pillars: protecting Americans by preventing and containing infectious disease outbreaks, strengthening bilateral relationships to save lives and foster economic growth, and promoting American innovation for a more prosperous future.
The AFGHS prioritizes American interests by safeguarding the nation from infectious disease outbreaks, while also saving millions of lives worldwide and supporting countries like Cameroon in building resilient health systems through multi-year bilateral MOUs. Over the past 25 years, U.S. global health programs have prevented thousands of infectious disease outbreaks, saved over 26 million lives through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), and prevented 7.8 million babies from being born with HIV/AIDS. The AFGHS also emphasizes the need to address inefficiencies and reduce dependency by ensuring that more health assistance directly supports frontline supplies and health care workers, rather than overhead and technical assistance.
A New Chapter: The U.S.-Cameroon Five-Year Memorandum of Understanding
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In alignment with the AFGHS, the United States and the Government of Cameroon signed a historic five-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to advance durable and resilient health systems in Cameroon. The U.S. government through the Department of State is working with Congress and plans to provide up to nearly $400 million through this five-year MOU. The government of Cameroon has committed to increasing its health spending by $450 million, making Cameroon one of the first countries globally to pledge more than what the Department of State plans to invest under the AFGHS. The five-year MOU marks a new era of partnership, with clear goals and action plans designed to benefit both nations and ensures that U.S. health assistance strategically advances shared interests, saves lives, and supports economic growth in both countries.
Key areas of cooperation include:
Frontline Commodities & Health care Workers: The U.S. plans to fully fund health commodities and frontline health care workers in Cameroon for 2026 and 2027, ensuring reliable access to essential medicines, diagnostics, and a robust health workforce. Over the five years, the U.S. plans to invest more than $49 million in health commodities and $95 million in payroll for more than 5,000 full-time health care workers, while supporting Cameroon's plan to integrate these workers into its permanent workforce over time.
Data Systems: The five-year MOU supports the creation of a unified, secure, and interoperable digital health ecosystem in Cameroon, including the nationwide rollout of tools to digitize patient-level data and improve decision-making. The U.S. will invest over $52 million in data systems over this MOU's five years.
Surveillance and Outbreak Preparedness: More than $33 million will be provided to enhance Cameroon's national surveillance and outbreak preparedness, enabling rapid detection, notification, and response to infectious disease threats with epidemic or pandemic potential.
Laboratory Systems: The U.S. will provide up to $23 million to support the development of a network of national reference and regional laboratories, improving pathogen identification, real-time surveillance, and laboratory workforce training.
Strategic Investment: More than $73 million will be provided to strengthen Cameroon's health system, enabling independent implementation and oversight of global health programs by the end of the five-year MOU, with ongoing U.S. support focused on surveillance, outbreak response, and new health interventions.
The five-year MOU requires Cameroon to co-invest in these efforts and meet performance benchmarks, ensuring shared responsibility and sustainability. This approach is designed to move Cameroon toward greater self-reliance and ownership of its health programs.
A Positive Impact for Cameroon's Health and Prosperity
The impact of this five-year MOU will be profound. U.S. foreign assistance has already helped Cameroon reduce child mortality by 34% in the North and Far North regions, triple the proportion of children-under-five sleeping under bed nets, build an Emergency Operations Center, train nearly 2,000 field epidemiologists, and expand free HIV clinical services to all 10 regions. The new five-year MOU will build on these achievements, supporting Cameroon's efforts to prevent, detect, and respond to health threats such as cholera, malaria, yellow fever, influenza, measles, polio, and other epidemic-prone diseases. The five-year MOU plans to help Cameroon develop a durable, self-reliant health system that maintains the health of its population and supports economic growth.
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By strengthening surveillance, laboratory capacity, supply chains, and the health workforce, this U.S.-Cameroon partnership plans to protect Cameroonians and contribute to shared global health security goals--keeping Americans safer and supporting prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic. As the five-year MOU is implemented, both countries will work together to ensure that the benefits of the AFGHS and this MOU are felt and meet our shared and jointly agreed upon five-year global health goals.
