[Ip-health] UK Govt makes £1 billion commitment to Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria in poor countr ies

[Michelle Childs]

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[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
http://www.dfid.gov.uk/news/files/pressreleases/global-fund.asp
Press Release

25 September 2007
UK makes £1 billion commitment to Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and
Malaria in poor countries


Douglas Alexander, Secretary of State for International Development,
today announced a commitment of £1 billion up to 2015 to the external
linkGlobal Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM). As part of
this commitment, the UK will provide £360 million for 2008-2010,
which is a 20% increase on our current funding.
Making sure that more gets done

Douglas Alexander said:

“The UK is the first country to make a long-term commitment to the
Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria in the push to achieve the
Millennium Development Goals. We recognise that more needs to be done
to meet the MDGs, in particular to achieve the health MDGs. By
pledging £1 billion over the next eight years, the UK will help the
Global Fund to provide poor countries with long term financial
commitments as they work to reduce the death and destruction of these
three diseases.

“Every year 3 million people die from AIDS, 2 million people die from
TB and 1 million die from malaria. By keeping our G8 promises, we
will be the second largest donor of development assistance in the G8
by 2010. We want to ensure that every pound we spend is used to the
best possible effect, so our long term commitment is linked to good
performance in the coming years. The Fund will need to become more
efficient and speed up the way in which resources are put to work for
the benefit of poor people.”

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Meeting our commitments on health

In five years, the Global Fund has become one of the main ways in
which the international community provides funding to combat TB and
Malaria. So far it has:

         * prevented nearly 2 million deaths through providing AIDS
treatment for over 1 million people;
         * provided TB treatment for nearly 3 million people;
         * distributed 30 million insecticide-treated bed nets for
the prevention of malaria worldwide.

The Prime Minister set out the global challenge to meet the MDGs and
make poverty history when he addressed the United Nations in July.
Overall the UK spends £800 million a year on improving health in
developing countries, and is the second largest donor in the world in
the fight to tackle HIV/AIDS. Giving money to the Global Fund is just
one of the many ways in which the UK provides support for health in
developing countries in order to meet our G8 commitments.

We also support innovative financing mechanisms such as the external
linkInternational Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm) which
aims to raise $4 billion over 10 years, and whose first bond issue
has already raised over $1 billion to tackle vaccine-preventable
diseases.

The UK has also made a long term commitment to external linkUNITAID,
the International Drugs Purchasing Facility which, subject to
UNITAID's performance, will amount to some £790 million ($1.6
billion) over 20 years. This will help secure essential AIDS, TB and
malaria medicines for people in poor countries. As members of the
UNITAID Board we have approved UNITAID contributions to GFATM
programmes totalling $144 million.

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Notes for editors

1. The Global Fund replenishment conference is taking place in Berlin
from 26-28 September, 2007. Shriti Vadera, Minister for International
Development, will attend.

2. So far the UK has contributed around £370 million ($668 million)
to the Global Fund, which has received an eighth (12.5%) of DFID’s
total health spend. We are committed to increasing our spending on
health. We also spend through other channels such as the external
linkWorld Health Organisation, the external linkWorld Bank and our
bilateral programme, which are as efficient as GFATM.

3. The International Health Partnership (IHP) was launched last month
and commits donors and international agencies to better coordination
in support of poor countries’ national health plans. The Global Fund
is one of the IHP signatories.

4. Worldwide 39.5 million people are living with HIV. In 2006, over 4
million people were newly infected and nearly 3 million people died
of AIDS. Ninety per cent of all deaths from malaria occur in Africa,
mostly in children under five years of age. Each year, nearly 2
million people die of TB, despite the availability of inexpensive
treatments that are effective in up to 95% of cases.

5. The UK remains the second biggest donor for HIV/AIDS (behind the
US) and today’s announcement continues the UK Government's very
strong commitment to increasing spending on AIDS (between 2003 and
2007 this totalled £1.1 billion).

6. The UK also provides support to tackle HIV/ AIDS, TB and malaria
through UN agencies, the World Bank, civil society groups and
directly to poor governments.

For further information, contact Sarah Saxton on 020 7023 0944 or 020
7023 0600, e-mail pressoffice@dfid.gov.uk or call our Public
Enquiries Point on 0845 300 4100.

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Michelle Childs
Head of European Affairs
Knowledge Ecology International
michelle.childs@cptech.org