The United States challenged other countries Wednesday to pay their share of the worlds premier AIDS-fighting fund by the end of September or lose 120 million US dollar (720 mio. DKR) in US cash, reports the World Bank press review Thursday.
At issue is financing for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a program initiated by the United Nations.
It was supposed to provide roughly 7 billion US dollar a year to fight those diseases. But it is facing a serious budget shortfall that AIDS activists say jeopardizes efforts to stem the growing epidemic in poor countries.
Wednesdays announcement sparked more concern.
Congress set aside 547 million US dollar as the US contribution to the fund this year, but on the condition that the US money could not exceed 33 percent of the funds total donations. It was considered an incentive to ensure other donors pitch in, said Randall Tobias, the US global AIDS coordinator.
As a result, donations from other countries or private donors had to total 1,11 billion US dollar for the Swiss-based Global Fund to get all the US cash, Tobias said.
But he calculates the non-US share is 243 million dollar short. So the United States is set to withhold a final 120 million dollar contribution, a far higher amount than AIDS advocates had expected.
Tobias said he would exercise his discretion to wait two months in hopes that the full grant could be made. Otherwise, the money would be used as part of the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
– Regardless of what happens, the 120 million dollar will be used for HIV/AIDS, Tobias said adding: – We would just like to make it available to the Global Fund.
Tobias and the US were heavily criticized at last months International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, because of the perception that too little of the money in the Bush administrations five-year, 15-billion US dollar AIDS program is going to the Global Fund. The bulk of that money is being spent in bilateral programs with about 20 heavily affected countries.
The Wall Street Journal further explains that other governments operating on different fiscal years may have trouble with such a tight deadline.
James V. Palmer, the Global Fund spokesman, said Richard Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund, “reached out to Ambassador Tobias,” suggesting the two-month extension “to accommodate other European governments budgetary schedules that do not necessarily conform to the US deadline of July 31.”
In other news, Africas most populous nation plans to spend 248 million US dollar on AIDS drugs for 200.000 HIV-infected Nigerians by the end of 2005, Health Minister Eyitayo Lambo said Wednesday.
Aside from procuring the antiretroviral drugs, the money will also be used to diagnose and monitor the 200.000 HIV sufferers who will receive the drugs in Nigeria, where 5 percent – or 6 million – of the 126 million-strong population is estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS.
A substantial part of the funds will come from grants by the United States and the UN-initiated Global Fund, Lambo said.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
