Aids global fund kitty 'empty'
2003-02-25 14:00
Cape Town - Developed countries appear not to be honouring their pledges to the United Nations Global Fund on Aids, TB and Malaria, Health Minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said on Tuesday.
Briefing the National Assembly's health committee, she said the fund's "kitty is empty".
In April last year, the fund approved allocations of $616m to about 40 countries, but at that stage it only had $347m available to disperse - leaving a shortfall of about 50%.
On January 15 this year, $2.2bn had been pledged to the fund, but it only had $724m readily available.
Tshabalala-Msimang discounted suggestions by committee members that the fund might be a "non-starter", saying she was hopeful that the developed countries would honour their pledges.
"We have got to rely on the goodwill of the developed countries and hope they will honour their pledges. We can only appeal, as I do all the time, for the pledges to be honoured," she said.
She was unaware of the reasons for the delayed pledge payments.
It was estimated that the fund needed about $2.5bn to fund programmes this year, and about $3.8bn in 2004.
Last year the fund approved several applications from South Africa for programme funding of about $21m, including proposals by Lovelife, Soul City, the Lebombo Spatial Initiative and the national health department.
The controversial proposal by KwaZulu-Natal's Enhancing Care Initiative - for $11m - which had not been submitted via South Africa's Country Co-ordinating Mechanism (CCM) as required by the Global Fund, had now been resubmitted "with modifications".
Tshabalala-Msimang said the changes had been agreed upon by her department and the KwaZulu-Natal initiative, and she believed it would be approved by the fund's board when it met in June this year, as it now had the CCM's backing.
Although several programme proposals had been approved, no money had actually been received yet. It was hoped the agreements allowing the transfers to be made would be signed in April, she said.
The global fund, which is solely a funding instrument and not an implementing agency, invites proposals for funding, which are then evaluated by an independent technical review panel, taking into account a number of factors.
These include that the proposal must build on and complement existing national and regional programmes.
Although all applications have to be made through a country's CCM, exceptions are made in cases where there is no legitimate government and ongoing conflict.
Applications are then approved or rejected by the fund's 18-member board, which has a rotating chairmanship.
Donor countries have seven seats on the board (France, Italy, Japan, Sweden, Britain, the United States, and a European Union representative) and developing countries also have seven (Brazil, Ukraine, China, Pakistan, Uganda, Nigeria, and Thailand). South Africa is an alternate member of the board.
There are also two seats each for NGOs and private sector donors.
- SAPA