UK breaks key promise to fight against AIDS, TB and Malaria
September 26th, 2007This post was written by Diarmaid. You can read more posts by: Diarmaid or more posts in Campaign News
Outrage as UK contribution to Global Fund just half what promised!
Douglas Alexander yesterday announced that the UK would be pledging only half the amount of money required by, and promised to, the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria. The UK’s contribution announced at the Labour Party Conference will be £1billion over the next eight years.
NGOs, leading MPs and celebrities including Elton John originally called on the Prime Minister to pledge £700m to the Global Fund over three years. The current pledge amounts to just £360m over three years, the period to be focused on by the Global Fund at its Replenishment Conference in Berlin in two days time, at which donor countries are expected to declare their contributions.
Whilst the long-term nature of the commitment is welcome, the UK’s overall contribution is worryingly low.
In June the G8 promised to treble the size of the Global Fund by 2010 to tackle the three diseases that kill over 6 million people each year. In July, at the UN, Gordon Brown claimed moral leadership by warning the world that promises to tackle poverty and disease must not be broken. Now the Government has done exactly that, and sadly the effect will be felt by millions of people affected by Aids, TB and malaria across the world.
By making this pledge so weak, and by announcing it before the conference begins, the bar has been set dangerously low, and there is a real risk that other donors will follow suit.
Fully meeting the funding pledge would have ensured that the UK continued to contribute its fair share as the Global Fund expanded its programmes to meet the G8 promise. This will now not happen and the Fund’s 2010 target of providing $6-8bn per year to Aids, TB and Malaria programmes is in danger.
by Steve Cockburn
