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Tuesday, April 30, 2002 - Web posted at 9:11:58 pm GMT

UN Global disease fund will not benefit Namibia

NAMIBIA has missed out on a chance to benefit financially from the multi-million-dollar Global Fund to Fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

The first round of grants made available to country programmes for the prevention and treatment of the three diseases were announced last Thursday.

The Global Fund awarded a total of US$378 million over two years to 40 programmes in 31 countries, but Namibia was not among the beneficiaries.

Yesterday Health Minister Dr Libertina Amathila said her Ministry has yet to receive official confirmation that proposals for funding submitted by Namibia were not approved.

She was also in the dark as to why Namibia's programmes failed to attract the grants.

A senior health official said Namibia had very little time to compile the different proposals for AIDS, TB and malaria grants and also struggled to present them for approval.

The approved grants were selected from more than 300 proposals submitted for the first round of funding. These proposals requested more than US$5 billion from the Global Fund over five years.

South Africa received US$24,7 million to strengthen its HIV and TB programmes while Zambia got US$19,8 million for the same purpose. Zimbabwe will benefit from two grants - US$4,7 million (malaria) and US$5,3 million (HIV).

Other countries from the region that also failed to attract the grants were Botswana, which has the highest HIV infection rate, Swaziland and Mozambique.

The Fund said in a press release that it prioritised high-quality proposals that were based on effective programmes and lessons learned, and were developed by partnerships of governments, community organisations, people living with the diseases, and other groups.

Twenty-one of the 28 countries that will receive funds to fight HIV-AIDS, have grants that specifically include funding to purchase anti-retroviral treatments.

Namibia will get another chance when the Fund issues a second call for proposals later this year.

The Fund was initiated by the United Nations last year. Developed countries make pledges to the Fund and the money is given to developing countries to strengthen health systems through programmes on HIV, TB and malaria.