E-drug: G7 Finance Ministers meeting: Crisis at the Global Fund
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Press contact : Khalil Elouardighi - ACT UP-Paris - + 33 6 6315 38 82
G7 Finance Ministers meeting: Crisis at the Global Fund
16 May 2003
An AIDS G8 Emergency campaign press release
Today May 16, the Finance Ministers of the world's 7 wealthiest
countries are meeting in France to discuss international affairs and
their financial implications, and prepare the G8 summit of June 1-3.
At the United Nations and the Genoa Summit in 2001 (1), the G8
countries committed to reaching a total 10 billion dollars a year for the
fight against aids and created a Global Fund to do so. Two years
later, G8 donations to the Fund are still less than 350 million a year.
Where is the 10 billion promised ?
"The Fund is empty. A minimum of 1,4 billion dollars is required for
2003" declared the Director of the Global Fund, Richard Feachem, on
May 4 (2). "If the United States the other members of the G7 don't
augment their contributions to the Global Fund in the immediate
future, we will be in desperate trouble" warned UN Envoy for AIDS
Stephen Lewis on January 8 (3). If current budgetary trends continue,
donor support in 2003 will still be much less than the bare minimum
required for basic prevention and care programs warned the IMF and
the World Bank in their April 2003 report to the Finance Ministers (4).
On the field, underfinancing of the Global Fund already has dramatic
human consequences. Gilles Raguin of French medical aid
organisation Medecins du Monde (Doctors of the World) explains : in
Cambodia we have started a treatment programme for people with
aids which is partly financed by the Fund. After a year the Fund's
money's still not here, and many people have had to go without
treatment and died.
On February 22 the G7 Finance Ministers 3reaffirmed support for the
Global Health Fund [whose] achievement calls for an increased
volume of development resources. We will continue to focus on the
Millenium Development Goals [including aids] and their financing, with
a view to making further progress by Evian (5). At their last meeting
before the Evian summit, the G7 Finance Ministers must commit to
release the required 1,4 billion emergency contribution to the Global
Fund, and okay the payment, in the course of the year, of their fair
share of the 10 billion they promised in 2001.