EU to finance half of ‘poverty disease’ fund

By David Cronin

Date: 01/09/05

The EU will commit itself to providing 50% of all finance to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria during 2006 at a conference next week (5-6 September).

But the amounts pledged at the London event are expected to fall far short of the $3 billion (€2.4bn) which the fund is seeking for next year.

In total, donor governments are to promise $2bn (@1.6mbn) to the fund, with half of that coming from the European Commission and the EU member states.

Louis Michel, the commissioner for development and humanitarian affairs, will commit about €100 million from the Union's budget and the European Development Fund when he addresses the conference.

The Geneva-based fund is the main organisation financing projects against the three 'poverty diseases', which claim some six million lives per year.

While the EU is set to remain its largest donor, some of its national governments have only made relatively small contributions to it, since its inception in 2001. Greece has paid just €300,000, Austria €1m and Portugal €2.5m.

Discussions have taken place within the Council of Ministers in recent months on whether amounts could be set for how much each EU country would pay into the fund, based on its national wealth.

But this idea has been met with some resistance from the fund itself. Whereas the UK, France and Germany have all agreed to increase their contributions, there is concern that their donations would remain fixed if a formula for all EU payments were introduced.

Commission officials have also argued that the fund should change some of its business practices before it receives the $3bn requested. Officials are arguing that there should be a more flexible system of applications for funding than the current one, where a round of proposals takes place every six months.

To date, the fund has provided about 20% of the one million people placed on anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment with these medicines - designed to prevent or slow the onset of AIDS-related illnesses. But the one million figure is only a third of the target set by the World Health Organisation for ARV access by 2005.

Alvaro Bermejo from the International HIV/AIDS Alliance said the London conference would be the "first litmus test" for the undertaking made by the G8 leaders at their July summit to have universal ARV treatment for those who need it by the end of the decade.

Anticipation of a conference, 5-6 September, at which the EU was planning to commit itself to providing 50% of all finance to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria during 2006.