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Uganda: Global fund resumes aid
11/11/2005 09:24 - (SA)
Geneva - The Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria said on Thursday it had lifted its suspension on $367m in assistance to health programmes in Uganda.
"Over the past two months, the Global Fund has been heartened by the intensive efforts of our partners in Uganda," said executive director Richard Feachem.
"We are very pleased that the progress made enables us to lift the suspension of Ugandas grants," he said..
The fund, created in 2002 as a joint public-private clearing house for receiving and distributing donor money to developing countries, temporarily froze assistance to Uganda in August, citing "serious mismanagement" there.
Shortly after the suspension, Uganda appointed an international audit firm to oversee the programmes against Aids, malaria and TB supported by the global fund.
Restructuring aid co-ordination efforts
Auditors Ernst and Young will manage the procurement of medicines and condoms over the next six to nine months.
The global fund said it had also reached an agreement with the Ugandan government on a restructuring of aid co-ordination efforts in the East African country.
Uganda, which had won international praise for its anti-Aids programmes, has recently come under intense criticism for allegedly backsliding in its commitments.
Less than a week after the global fund announced its suspension, health campaigners accused the country of succumbing to United States pressure to eliminate condom use in favour of promoting sexual abstinence in its strategy against HIV/Aids.
Several non-governmental organisations alleged that abstinence-only campaigns were responsible for a massive condom shortage in Uganda that threatened to unravel earlier gains in fighting the spread of the HIV virus.
Uganda has denied the charges.
- AFP
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