A US government map of Africa displayed during a State Department presentation at the Aids 2026 conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, mislabeled every country on the continent, sparking widespread criticism.
Map errors and AI watermark
The erroneous map was shown halfway through a presentation about the State Department's new health agreements. A Reuters analysis found the map contained an artificial intelligence watermark indicating it was made with OpenAI tools. OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.
The map showed Nigeria, where the US has several hundred troops deployed, as landlocked in the Sahara desert. Mozambique, located in southeastern Africa, was relocated to the Horn of Africa, while Côte d'Ivoire in West Africa was placed on the opposite side of the continent.
State Department response
The State Department said it took “full responsibility” for the confusion caused and that the map had been produced by a team member who hastily changed the slide deck before the event. In a statement, it said: “We take full responsibility for the confusion and misrepresentation it caused for attendees, including our African partners.”
The speaker at the conference was Jeff Graham, the top US health envoy overseeing the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar). He did not reply to requests for comment.
Impact on conference
Screenshots of the map first appeared in a Substack post by Aids expert Emily Bass and were widely shared on LinkedIn, with one post garnering about 40,000 views. “Whoever created and approved this slide did not know where countries in Africa are and did not care to check their work,” wrote Matt Petit, who focuses on AI and geopolitics at the Atlantic Council, in the post.
The State Department said the discussions at the conference were “substantive and constructive” despite the map and that it remained committed to fighting Aids with real results.
Funding context
The Trump administration’s decision last year to pause funding pending a review disrupted aid programs worldwide, but Pepfar’s core work such as providing life-saving drugs has largely resumed. The US is scaling back other areas of its spending, including prevention and surveillance, and plans to fully phase out the program in South Africa.
