A civil society organisation based in Uganda, Afya na Haki, has condemned President Donald Trump’s announcement of a sweeping expansion of the Global Gag Rule (GGR), which is also known as the Mexico City Policy. 

In a statement, the organisation described the development as an onslaught on Africa’s right to define, structure and sustain its own system in accordance with indigenous philosophies, constitutional guarantees and communal traditions.

The group said, “The recent expansion of the Global Gag Rule by the United States government represents an assault on Africa’s right to define, structure and sustain its own system in accordance with indigenous philosophies, constitutional guarantees and communal traditions. 

“Framed as a repudiation of what American policymakers characterise as gender ideology and diversity, equity and inclusion, the policy targets deeply African principles rooted in Ubuntu — the ethic of relational parenthood, collective responsibility and mutual care that has underpinned our social and health systems for centuries.”

Last Friday, Mr Trump’s administration introduced a Promoting Human Flourishing in Foreign Assistance (PHFFA) policy, expanding the Global Gag Rule, imposing alarming new conditions, to reshape U.S. foreign assistance along ideological lines.

However, the organisation, which advocates sexual and reproductive health and rights using Afrocentric approaches, described Mr Trump’s decision as epistemic violence targeted at African institutions advocating reproductive health and rights on the continent.

Noting that African countries had achieved significant reductions in maternal mortality, expanded contraception access, advanced legal reforms for safe abortions amongst others, the organisation said the global gag rule threatened the organisational logic through which African systems had remained resilient.

“Over two decades, African nations have achieved significant reductions in maternal mortality, expanded contraception access, advanced legal reforms for safe abortions and built community health programs anchored in trust and collective wellbeing. The Global Gag Rule threatens to roll back these documented achievements and dismantle the organizational logic through which African systems have remained resilient,” it stated.

According to the organisation, to criminalise equity-oriented, community-grounded health programming is to deny the legitimacy of African ways of knowing, organising and healing.

It noted, “To condition resources on the abandonment of these arrangements is to misstate the moral and political character of aid itself. Such conditionality subordinates African knowledge to foreign coercion and strips African communities of their rights to self-determination and system sustainability.”

Afya na Haki urged African governments and communities to deepen investment in domestic health systems, among others, to reduce dependency on conditional foreign undermining sovereignty on the continent.

The group stated, “The defense of Ubuntu is the defence of dignity, equity, sovereignty, constitutionalism and evidence-based progress. It is the defense of life itself, as Africans understand it, as our constitutions guarantee it, and as our communities live it.”