The U.S. government on Thursday acknowledged an “unlucky error” that led to a map of Africa with each country mislabelled being shown at a world AIDS conference this week.
The mislabelled map was shown during a presentation on the AIDS 2026 Conference in Rio de Janeiro on the U.S. State Department’s latest health program funding agreements with African nations, that are being reworked after the Trump administration reduced global aid last yr.
Images of the map first appeared Sunday in a Substack post by AIDS expert and activist Emily Bass and were widely shared on LinkedIn. Reuters then viewed video of the presentation and published screenshots of the map in query.
The map shows Nigeria, a rustic on the West African coast, as landlocked within the northern Sahara Desert. Mozambique, on the southeast coast, is errantly labelled further north within the Horn of Africa, where Ethiopia actually is.
Although Uganda and Malawi are shown in roughly their real-life positions, their borders are completely redrawn, as are the opposite countries identified on the map.
The colors of every country also don’t correspond with those of the country names connected to them. In a single example, an orange label for Côte d’Ivoire — one other West African country falsely shown as landlocked — connects to a green country on the opposite side of the continent.
“This was an unlucky error attributable to a team member who swiftly altered the slide deck immediately before the presentation on the AIDS 2026 Conference,” a State Department spokesperson told Global News on background in an emailed statement.
“We take full responsibility for the confusion and misrepresentation it caused for attendees, including our African partners.”
Reuters reported that its evaluation found the image of the map included within the presentation contained a man-made intelligence watermark that signals it was made with OpenAI tools. The corporate told Reuters it was investigating.
The U.S. State Department spokesperson told Global News that “high-level delegations from a broad range of African countries” were present on the session, “countries we’re working with closely to implement the America First Global Health Strategy’s vision of sustainable, country-owned health programs.”
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Despite the error-filled map, “The engagement within the room was substantive and constructive,” the statement added, “reflecting our ongoing relationship with recipient country governments as we work with them to actively shape how their very own health programs are designed and resourced going forward.”
The Trump administration and Republican majorities within the U.S. Congress slashed foreign aid budgets last yr and dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
Those moves, in addition to a freeze on all foreign funding pending a review, disrupted the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, referred to as PEPFAR, which is credited for saving the lives of over 25 million people world wide with HIV since its creation in 2003.
PEPFAR’s core work, reminiscent of the supply of life-saving drugs, has largely resumed since last yr’s actions, however the U.S. is scaling back other areas of its spending — including on HIV prevention and surveillance — and plans to completely phase out this system in South Africa.
On the AIDS Conference on Monday, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and health policy research firm KFF reported international government funding for global HIV responses plunged 25 per cent in 2025 from the yr before.
UNAIDS individually reported that domestic HIV financing increased by 4 per cent, accounting for nearly 60 per cent of total HIV funding, “as countries worked to offset declines in international support.”
The findings led Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS, to declare that “the era of counting on international aid is over,” while the conference itself said the worldwide HIV response is under more “severe strain” than at any point since 2002, when funding began to be scaled up world wide.
The Trump administration says it has signed bilateral “America First” global health funding agreements with 34 countries, which U.S. officials say are supposed to increase self-sufficiency, reduce “dependency” on U.S. funding and eliminate what it calls ideological priorities and waste in international assistance. The deals replace a patchwork of previous health agreements under USAID.
The U.S. State Department spokesperson said Thursday the agreements amount to over $14.3 billion in U.S. assistance and greater than $9.6 billion in co-investment from recipient countries.
“The USA continues to combat HIV/AIDS globally and stays focused on delivering results through strong, accountable partnerships,” the spokesperson said.
Criticism of the mislabelled map has spread online since Bass’s post.
“Whoever created and approved this slide didn’t know where countries in Africa are and didn’t care to envision their work,” Matt Petit, who focuses on AI and geopolitics on the Atlantic Council, posted on LinkedIn while sharing the article.
“That latter point means additionally they *didn’t care enough* in regards to the material to trouble.”
—with files from Reuters and the Associated Press
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