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Ghana has rejected a proposed health compact with the United States that would have provided an estimated $109 million in US health funding over five years, with President John Dramani Mahama saying the agreement raised serious concerns over health data, financing obligations, and Ghana’s regulatory authority.

The decision places Ghana among a few African countries that have pushed back against new US health agreements introduced as Washington restructures its foreign assistance following the dismantling of USAID. Zimbabwe has also rejected a similar agreement, while Zambia has raised concerns over provisions in its negotiations with the United States.

Ghana raises concerns over health data

Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on September 25, Mahama said the proposed compact was presented to Ghana as a replacement for health funding previously provided through USAID.

He said Ghana’s Ministry of Health reviewed the document before preparing a Cabinet Information Paper.

“Ghana is a sovereign nation, and we have our own processes. We are a democratic country,” Mahama said.

According to the President, the Cabinet identified several provisions that raised concerns, particularly those relating to Ghana’s health information.

“One, it says that we shall give the United States our pathogen profile,” he said, adding that the agreement also required Ghana to provide medical records.

“It also says we should give our medical records. I mean, who takes another country’s medical records? And so that was strange.”

Concerns over health-data sharing have been central to resistance to the new US health agreements in several African countries. 

No FDA inspection

Mahama also raised concerns about the treatment of medicines and other medical products supplied under the proposed arrangement.

He said Ghana would have been required to contribute funding to the program while, according to his account of the compact, the country’s Food and Drugs Authority would not have been able to inspect medicines or other medical products entering Ghana under the program.

“And then it also says that any medications or any medical products that shall be brought into our country, our Food and Drugs Administration has absolutely no right to inspect,” Mahama said.

“I mean, it was humiliating.”

Ghanaian officials had previously cited concerns about the proposed handling of sensitive health information as a reason for rejecting the agreement. Reporting on the negotiations also indicated that the proposed arrangement would have required additional investment from Ghana alongside the US contribution.

Cabinet rejected the agreement

Mahama said the proposal was rejected after the Health Ministry presented its assessment to the Cabinet.

He described the decision as unusually swift.

“It was the compact that was thrown out in record time in our Cabinet. I’ve never seen anything thrown out as fast as that.”

He said the government subsequently instructed the Health Minister to communicate Ghana’s position to the US ambassador.

“And so, of course, we rejected it. And we asked the health minister to inform the US ambassador that we didn’t need it. We’ll manage ourselves.”

The proposed agreement would have provided Ghana with about $109 million in US health assistance over five years. The negotiations had begun in late 2025.

A wider concern over health sovereignty

Ghana’s decision comes as the United States seeks to shift its approach to global health cooperation. The new US strategy places greater emphasis on recipient countries taking responsibility for financing and delivering health programs, while Washington reduces its traditional aid commitments.

Kenya became the first African country to sign the agreement which was challenged in court, followed by similar arrangements with Rwanda, Liberia, Uganda, Lesotho and Eswatini, among other countries. Ravi Ram from the People’s Health Movement (PHM) East and South Africa, told BreakThrough News in December 2025, that  “Bilateral agreements between the US and Kenya and other African countries are meant to limit the ability of any one ‘partner’ country to challenge the terms of implementing the agreement, due to the unequal power relations.”

The concerns among health activists and concerned Africans is the ability of African states to determine their own health priorities, regulate medicines, control sensitive health information, and collectively negotiate the terms of international health cooperation.

A proposed R114 million wall along Cape Town’s N2 has sparked protests, with residents and civil society groups accusing the city of investing in a barrier that could deepen the divide between poorer communities and surrounding suburbs.

Residents marched on September 25 to oppose the N2 Edge project, a planned 9-kilometer wall development that the city says is aimed at improving safety and security along the highway.

But protesters say that the wall risks reproducing the spatial divisions created under apartheid, saying public money should instead be spent on housing, public services and opportunities for communities that have been pushed to the margins.

Movement for CARE, which was among those involved in organizing the protests, had criticized the project, saying;

“Instead of investing in dignified housing, safe neighborhoods, quality public services, and opportunities for communities that have been pushed to the margins for generations, the city wants to invest millions in a barrier that deepens exclusion and reinforces the geography of apartheid.”

The organization said from the beginning when the news about the proposal was announced, that Cape Town does not need more walls but rather affordable housing close to work and economic opportunities, as well as greater investment in communities.

“We need investment in communities, not their isolation. We need a city that brings people together instead of driving them further apart,” it said.

The Movement for CARE described the proposed structure as an “Apartheid Wall,” arguing that the first step towards justice is refusing to normalize and hide existing inequalities.

City defends the R114 million project

The City of Cape Town has defended the project as a safety intervention. In January, Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said the city’s adjustment budget had committed “R114m to the N2 Edge project.”

The investment “will make a positive difference to the safety of every motorist along that stretch, and reduce pedestrian fatalities,” Hill-Lewis said.

He said the project would repair safety barriers and introduce other safety improvements for communities along the N2.

Hill-Lewis also said that a small number of “criminal elements” were affecting the safety of hundreds of thousands of daily N2 users.

According to the mayor, the N2 Edge project would be accompanied by increased highway patrols, with more than 40 new Metro police officers deployed to the N2, supported by CCTV cameras, automatic number plate recognition and digital coordination for rapid response.

Despite the widespread backlash, the city maintains it will continue with the project.

Abahlali baseMjondolo backs the protest

Abahlali baseMjondolo also supported the protests, saying in a post that the project would deepen racial and economic divisions in the city.

“The City of Cape Town continues to entrench neo-apartheid laws in post-apartheid South Africa by building a wall that segregates and hides the poor from the rich along the N2,” the organization said.

Adding that the project shows that the Democratic Alliance-led City does not recognize the needs of poor communities, particularly Black communities.

Read more: “A declaration of war against the poor”: AbM leads resistance against South Africa’s anti-occupation bill

The organization said it supported the struggles of residents in Khayelitsha, Langa, Dunoon, Gugulethu and Mitchells Plain who continue to face what it described as segregation and racism.

The protests have raised questions over whether the R114 million allocated to the N2 Edge project represents the right priority for Cape Town. With the protesters arguing that public resources should instead be directed towards reducing inequality, improving services and providing better housing and opportunities for communities living along the N2, instead of separating communities and concealing poverty.

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Fear and anger are growing in South Africa after the bodies of nine women were discovered across the Ekurhuleni municipality, east of Johannesburg, over the past two months, with police investigating whether the deaths are connected, a 10th body was confirmed this week. Three suspects have been arrested, and police have acknowledged a possible connection between some of the killings. What is not in dispute is the scale of the crisis the discovery has exposed, and the outrage it has provoked, protests against femicide have been held in the country in the weeks since.

Four of the nine women have so far been publicly identified, Elizabeth “Tsontso” Moselakgomo, 38, a mother who vanished during her regular afternoon run and was found days later behind a hotel in Rhodesfield; Itumeleng Kekana, 32, missing since July and found in August with multiple stab wounds; Dineo Evelyn Motapane, 38, found in KwaThema; and Gracious Nkomo, 28, a lodge worker in Kempton Park missing for more than two weeks before she was found. 

Anger over the response

The deaths have triggered protests and renewed criticism of the country’s response to gender-based violence. Residents and women’s rights campaigners have questioned why women are repeatedly advised to change their behavior, avoid isolated areas, walking alone or running alone, rather than placing greater emphasis on preventing perpetrators from committing violence.

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) has been among the sharpest voices responding to the killings. In a statement condemning the deaths, the union insisted the killings should not be treated as a “crime wave” or a mystery, describing them instead as femicide and, more precisely, a war being waged against women. NUMSA’s argument is that this is not an aberration but the visible edge of something structural. The union points to police figures showing at least 569 women murdered nationally between April and June 2026 alone, by the verified count, with an unverified estimate closer to 892, roughly six women killed every day. Against this, nine deaths in one metro over two months is, in the union’s words, closer to the ordinary condition of the country, made visible only because the fear of a serial killer has made it a story the wider public can imagine touching them.

The statement also pushes back on the instinct to treat this primarily as a street-level danger. Of thousands of rape cases registered by police in the same quarter, the majority occurred in a residence, not a public place. The killings that draw headlines, a body beside a highway, represent a fraction of a type of violence whose center of gravity is the home.

The economics underneath the violence

NUMSA also refuses to treat gender-based violence as an individual pathology alone. It traces a line from the colonial and apartheid-era migrant labor system, which depended on women’s unpaid domestic and reproductive labor to keep wages artificially low through to the present, where South African women remain disproportionately unemployed (an official rate near 37.5%, against 44.9% for men) and disproportionately head of household. Over four in ten nationally, and closer to half in rural areas. Close to two million employed women work informally, without pensions, medical aid, or written contracts. When a woman who is also a breadwinner is killed, the union argues, it is not only a life lost but a household’s income and caregiving capacity lost with her.

Gender-based violence and femicide were declared a national disaster in South Africa in November 2025. Nearly a year on, the killings in Ekurhuleni are evidence, in the union’s reading, that the declaration has not translated into protection.

What’s being demanded

NUMSA has rejected the idea of policing alone and the state’s response so far has leaned on a security “lockdown” of Kempton Park to answer a crisis this size. Its demands include full funding of the national plan on gender-based violence and femicide, functioning forensic and mortuary capacity so victims can be identified quickly, safe transport for workers on early and late shifts, and the implementation of the ILO Convention 190 on violence and harassment in the workplace, which South Africa has ratified but not fully enforced. Alongside state accountability, the union is calling for community-based structures, street and area committees, explicitly modeled on the civic organizing of the anti-apartheid period to accompany women, support survivors, and track cases through the courts.

Investigations continue, but the fear, concern and anger surrounding the killings remain. The deaths of the women in Ekurhuleni have already forced a public reckoning with the scale of violence against women in South Africa and the urgent need for stronger action to protect women and hold perpetrators accountable.

At least 82 bodies had been recovered, according to local officials and activists, while dozens of other miners were feared trapped or missing. The latest figure represents an increase from the 67 deaths earlier reported by the Sudan Doctors Network as rescue operations continued.

The collapse occurred in an area controlled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has been fighting Sudan’s military since April 2023. The continuing war has severely weakened state institutions and access to basic services across large parts of the country.

Limited rescue efforts

In a statement, the Sudan Doctors Network said they lacked basic safety and protective measures required at mining sites. It said search and rescue operations were continuing to locate survivors and people trapped beneath the rubble, warning that the death toll could rise.

The network called out the negligence that had exposed miners to grave risks and called on the authorities controlling the area to protect mining workers, provide medical and logistical support, and prevent unregulated mining activities from continuing without adequate safety measures.

Rescue operations have themselves been severely constrained. Murtada Ahmed, spokesman for the Kordofan Human Rights Observatory, told Radio Dabanga that the operation was progressing slowly because almost no specialized equipment was available. Local residents and miners have largely been forced to rely on their own efforts and basic machinery to recover bodies and search for people trapped underground.

A wider artisanal mining crisis

The disaster in Sudan comes only weeks after another major artisanal mining tragedy in the Central African Republic, where more than 100 people were killed when an artisanal gold mine collapsed following a landslide in the western part of the country.

Informal and small-scale mining provides a livelihood for millions of people and remains an important source of income in communities where formal employment opportunities are limited. At the same time, miners frequently work in dangerous conditions, with limited regulations, protective equipment, geological assessments, and emergency rescue capacity.

In Sudan, gold mining has become particularly important following the country’s economic collapse and war. The sector includes thousands of small-scale and informal operations, while gold-producing areas have also become economically and strategically important to the rival forces fighting for control of the country.

Disaster as Sudan’s war continues

The mine collapse is taking place as the war that has devastated Sudan since 2023 continues, producing widespread displacement, hunger, and the breakdown of essential services.

Read more: The Blue Nile front: Sudan’s war intensifies along Ethiopia’s border

West Kordofan is among the areas affected by the conflict between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces. The control of mining areas by armed actors has added another layer of vulnerability for workers and surrounding communities.

Protests rocked the Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday, September 15, as opposition supporters took to the streets in Kinshasa and several other cities to oppose proposed constitutional changes that they say could allow President Félix Tshisekedi to seek a third term.

The demonstrations were called by the opposition coalition C64 (Coalition Article 64), which has campaigned against changes to the Constitution and what it considers an attempt to remove the existing two-term presidential limit.

The demonstrations were also reported in several cities. In Kinshasa, hundreds of protesters gathered around the Limete area before the march was disrupted by clashes involving demonstrators and people identified as members of the Force du Progrès, a group affiliated with Tshisekedi’s ruling UDPS party. Police used tear gas and warning shots to disperse the crowd. At least 10 people were arrested in Kinshasa.

Opposition accuses authorities of an “ambush”

Martin Fayulu, leader of the Engagement for Citizenship and Development (ECiDé) and a leading C64 figure, accused authorities of deliberately allowing pro-government militants to attack the opposition march.

In a post following the confrontation, Fayulu said the C64 had agreed on its route with Kinshasa’s city authorities before the march. He alleged that protesters were then confronted in Limete by armed members of the Force du Progrès while police used tear gas against the marchers.

Fayulu wrote that the C64 had been “the victim of an ambush” and accused the authorities of using a political militia alongside security forces. He called on Kinshasa’s city authorities and the national government to explain what happened.

Read more: Lithium mining in the DRC: A new mineral rush spearheaded by the US, EU, and other major powers

The confrontation prevented the C64 march from reaching its planned destination and from delivering its memorandum to the authorities at the People’s Palace.

Opposition resistance has been building 

Tuesday’s demonstrations were the latest escalation in an opposition campaign that has been building since June, when there were protests after Congo’s parliament approved legislation allowing constitutional amendments to be submitted to a referendum.

The National Assembly and Senate have both backed the referendum legislation. Critics argue that the process could eventually open the way for amendments to the presidential term-limit provisions.

Tshisekedi was first elected president in 2018 and re-elected in 2023. Under the current Constitution, the president serves a maximum of two five-year terms. His current term runs until 2028.

The proposed constitutional changes have therefore become a major point of confrontation between the government and opposition. The C64 says it is defending the existing constitutional order and has rejected any change that could enable Tshisekedi to seek another term.

The protests and the crisis is happening as the government faces other major challenges, including conflict in eastern Congo and an Ebola outbreak.

Read more: Ebola spreads to 60 health zones in eastern DRC; UN warns of funding shortfall

Abahlali baseMjondolo has secured another court order preventing the forced relocation of residents of an informal settlement in Shaka’s Head, KwaZulu-Natal, until the Municipality complies with the conditions previously set by the Pietermaritzburg High Court.

On Friday, September 11, the Pietermaritzburg High Court issued a consent order directing the KwaDukuza Municipality to comply with an October 2025 court order before it can relocate residents in Shaka’s Head, on the Dolphin Coast.

The latest order was agreed to by both parties and effectively maintains the conditions imposed by the court last year. Residents will remain in the occupation until the municipality provides the basic services and meets the other requirements ordered by the court.

“This is no doubt another victory for Abahlali bakwaDukuza and all people facing evictions in South Africa,” Abahlali baseMjondolo said following the court proceedings.

Read more: “A declaration of war against the poor”: AbM leads resistance against South Africa’s anti-occupation bill

The movement has opposed attempts to evict residents from the settlement since the municipality initiated the process. The dispute has also involved the Dolphin Coast Residents’ Association, representing affluent homeowners in the area.

Court blocks eviction without basic services

The latest development follows a landmark ruling by the Pietermaritzburg High Court in October 2025, when the court halted the municipality’s attempt to forcibly evict hundreds of residents from Erf 1410.

The court found that the municipality could not proceed with the relocation unless it first met a number of conditions designed to ensure that residents would not be moved to an area without adequate services and facilities.

Among the requirements was that the municipality provide basic services, including roads, sanitation, waste removal, water, and temporary electricity.

The municipality was also required to demarcate individual stands for households and ensure that the relocation site had access to essential facilities, including schools, healthcare, and public transport.

The court ultimately adopted a draft order prepared by Abahlali’s legal team rather than the municipality’s proposed order, effectively preventing the eviction until the conditions had been fulfilled.

Municipality pursued eviction despite outstanding conditions

According to Abahlali baseMjondolo Secretary-General Thapelo Mohapi, speaking to BreakThrough News, the municipality had not fulfilled the requirements imposed by the October 2025 judgment.

Thapelo said the municipality had instead sought to proceed with eviction proceedings despite not providing the basic services required at the proposed relocation site.

“Only when they have provided those basic services, only then the people of Shaka’s Head will be relocated to the new piece of land,” Thapelo said.

He said that because the municipality had not yet provided the required services, residents would remain in the occupation.

The organization has long framed the dispute as part of a broader struggle over access to urban land and housing, particularly for working-class and Black residents living alongside more affluent communities.

Thapelo accused the municipality and sections of the area’s affluent residents of seeking to remove working-class people from areas close to economic opportunities and relocate them to the urban periphery.

The September order follows an earlier setback for the municipality in March 2025, when another attempt to advance the eviction process was blocked.

Read more: Abahlali baseMjondolo secures victory against forced evictions

For now, the position established through the court proceedings is that residents cannot be relocated until KwaDukuza Municipality complies with the requirements contained in the October 2025 order.

Tanzanian small-scale farmers’ organizations and civil society groups are raising concerns over the proposed East African Community (EAC) Seed and Plant Varieties Bill of 2025, warning that the legislation could marginalize farmer-managed seed systems unless specific protections and exemptions are introduced.

In a submission to public hearings on the proposed bill, the Mtandao wa Vikundi vya Wakulima (MVIWATA) called for the legislation to explicitly recognize and protect farmer-managed seed systems (FMSS), arguing that the current draft is largely designed around commercial and certified seed systems.

MVIWATA, established in 1993, which has more than 500,000 smallholder farmer members across Tanzania, has previously participated in discussions on seed legislation and harmonization at both national and regional levels, including the earlier draft EAC Seed and Plant Varieties Bill of 2018.

The organization says the 2025 draft is an improvement over the 2018 version, but argues that gaps remain, particularly regarding the recognition of farmer-managed seed systems and the rights of farmers to save, use, exchange, share, and sell their own seed.

According to MVIWATA, the draft bill is primarily oriented towards commercial seed, with requirements such as registration, certification, variety release, and quality assurance. The organization warns that applying these requirements broadly could inadvertently place farmer-managed seed systems under the same regulatory framework as commercial seed.

MVIWATA says this is particularly problematic because farmer-managed seed systems are a major source of seed for farmers in Tanzania and across East Africa.

The organization maintains that farmer seed systems should instead be explicitly excluded from commercial seed regulations, including formal registration, certification, variety release, and other requirements designed for commercial seed. It proposes the development of alternative, farmer-centered, and community-led mechanisms at the national level.

Sabrina Masinjila, senior program officer at the Society for International Development (SID), told BreakThrough News the concerns raised by MVIWATA were driven by the continued lack of policy recognition of farmer-managed seed systems at both national and regional levels.

She said the concern was also heightened by the possibility that legislation regulating commercial seed systems could contain provisions that inadvertently affect farmers’ traditional practices, including the sale and exchange of seed.

“The aim for seeking changes was to ensure that farmer seed and systems are exempted from any regulation including registration, certification and variety release that apply to commercial seed,” Masinjila said.

But she stressed that simply exempting farmer seed from regulation would not be enough.

“Exemptions are not sufficient as farmer seed systems still need enough support for their continued development, maintenance, conservation and protection,” she said.

According to Masinjila, the push is therefore for the bill to go beyond exemptions and create policy space for an alternative framework that can support farmer seed systems.

“We sought to establish not just clauses that exempt small-scale farmers from the Bill but also clauses that will start to provide opportunities to develop an alternative framework for farmer seed systems which will ensure they are conserved, maintained, protected and even supported for multiplication and distribution,” she said.

Such a framework, she argued, would have wider implications for agroecology, agricultural biodiversity, climate resilience, dietary diversity and nutrition.

MVIWATA makes a similar argument in its submission, saying farmer-managed seed systems play an important role in food security, nutrition, biodiversity conservation, and farmers’ livelihoods. The organization says recognition should not mean forcing farmer seed into the same regulatory system as commercial seed, but should acknowledge the contribution of farmers to the conservation and development of genetic resources.

Farmers’ rights at the center of debate

The debate is also closely linked to farmers’ rights under international agreements. MVIWATA points to the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), particularly Article 9, which addresses Farmers’ Rights. Its submission also cites the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP), including provisions relating to farmers’ rights to seed.

MVIWATA argues that the EAC Bill should therefore be aligned with these commitments and explicitly recognize farmers’ rights to save, use, reuse, conserve, multiply, develop, exchange, share, and sell farmer-managed seed.

The organization has proposed that the bill state explicitly that it applies to commercial seed systems and does not prohibit or restrict the saving, use, exchange, sharing, or reuse of farmer seed and non-commercial varieties.

Masinjila said the protection of farmers’ rights was inseparable from the wider discussion around seed regulation.

Adding that clauses should be included to protect farmers’ rights as recognized under the ITPGRFA and UNDROP, where access to and control over seed is connected to broader human rights.

“Without these changes, small-scale farmers and their seed system will continue to be neglected, marginalized and criminalized. And this is why we needed to intervene,” she said.

Concerns over the 2018 bill

The current debate is not entirely new. MVIWATA says it was strongly involved in discussions around the 2018 draft EAC Seed and Plant Varieties Bill, raising concerns about several provisions. The organization says its review of the 2025 version found improvements compared with the earlier draft.

Masinjila said one difference is that the previous bill contained provisions that were compliant with the 1991 Act of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), a plant variety protection regime that civil society and farmer organizations have criticized for being restrictive of farmers’ rights.

“The previous bill contained clauses that were compliant to UPOV 1991. A restrictive Plant Variety Protection regime which has been rejected by CSOs and farmer organizations globally as it undermines farmers rights,” she said.

However, she said concerns around regional harmonization remain under the current EAC Bill, particularly because legislation at EAC level is legally binding on partner states.

MVIWATA also warns that a binding regional framework could reduce the ability of individual countries to develop alternative approaches for farmer seed systems.

The organization is calling for the explicit recognition of farmer-managed seed systems, it has also proposed that farmer varieties should not be subjected to mandatory commercial registration or certification, while alternative mechanisms should be developed in consultation with smallholder farmers, pastoralists, and farming communities.

On seed marketing, MVIWATA wants the bill to make clear that farmers can sell and exchange farmer varieties at the national level and facilitate limited cross-border seed exchange among farmers within the EAC.

The organization is also seeking safeguards against the appropriation of farmers’ genetic resources, including requirements for the disclosure of origin, as well as free, prior, and informed consent from communities. Lastly, they want benefit-sharing agreements where genetic resources are acquired from farming communities.