EU funds fall short for fight against AIDS

The European Commission repeatedly proclaims that the EU is the main donor to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

But aid policy analysts argue that the Commission's own performance on tackling the AIDS pandemic is less impressive than it would have us believe.

Data compiled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) indicates that the proportion of the Commission's aid being allocated to health projects in poor countries has fallen in recent years. The Commission's spending on official development assistance rose between 2000 and 2003 from $4.8 billion to $7.2bn but the proportion devoted to health fell from 4% to 3.3%.

The proportion earmarked for work on sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) also fell in the same period, from 0.7% to less than 0.2%. The proportion of aid being allocated to STDs by some EU member states' spending programmes has also shrunk: in the case of Italy from 1.4% to 0.2%.

Mirjam van Reisen from Europe External Policy Advisors, a Brussels organisation researching poverty issues, said that the EU could have a vital role in counterbalancing the AIDS policy of the US federal government.

President George W. Bush's administration has stressed the importance of sexual abstinence. It has cut off federal funding (usually through the US agency for international development) for foreign non-governmental organisations which counsel clients on abortion, refer clients for abortion, or lobby their own governments either to make abortion legal or easier to obtain. In practice, this has reduced funding for family-planning organisations, many of which were suppliers of condoms. She said the EU was right to advocate condom use. "We need more of good Europe and not less," she said.

But van Reisen criticised the Commission's strategy paper on EU-Africa relations and a more general paper on the objectives of the Union's aid efforts. Both are to be endorsed by heads of state and government at their 15-16 December summit in Brussels.

Neither of these makes any specific reference to calls by the European Parliament for 35% of aid to be earmarked for the 'social sector', especially health and education.

"Louis Michel [the commissioner for development and humanitarian aid] is good at giving visibility to development issues," she said. "But there is a discrepancy between that visibility and its translation into policies."

Although EU governments have committed themselves to doubling aid by 2015, van Reisen said that the bulk of the increases could go on large-scale infrastructure projects, rather than on hospitals or schools. "There is no link between transport and HIV/AIDS," she said. "If anything, it is the reverse. Where you have roads and a lot of traffic, HIV increases."

In April this year, the Commission made a commitment to pay greater heed to the needs of children orphaned by AIDS in its dialogue with foreign governments. "So far, we have seen little evidence that this is being performed," said Sarah Collen from the relief agency World Vision.

Despite the EU's claims to be the main donor to the Global Fund - paying �2bn into its coffers so far - its contributions fall short of what the Geneva-based body has requested.

The fund is the main multilateral body financing projects against AIDS. In September, it asked its donors to provide $3bn (�2.4 bn) in 2006. EU officials, however, said that it should change its business practices if it wished to handle such sums. The officials argued that it should have a more flexible system of applications for funding than the current one, where a round of proposals occurs every six months.

Commission spokesman Amadeu Altafaj Tardio said that the EU institutions would be devising more specific commitments on AIDS during 2006 than those contained in the policy documents prepared for the December summit. "These initiatives identify the priority of eradicating poverty: improving health and education and other prerequisites like peace and security, good governance and capacity building," he said.

Article looks at the European Union's role in the global fight against HIV/AIDS. Article is part of a European Voice Special Report: 'HIV/AIDS'.