Kazatchkine turns a blind eye to Global Fund Funding Crisis

by Professor Brook K. Baker, Health GAP
Northeastern U. School of Law, Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy

There must be something about being the executive director of the Global Fund that causes directors (1) to discount the adverse consequences of low-ball funding of the Global Fund and (2) to undermine activist pressure on stingy donors and activists' efforts to counteract negative signalling by donors to recipients about prospects for more rapid scale-up toward Universal Access to comprehensive prevention, treatment and care.

When the U.S. first signalled luck warm support to the Global Fund in 2002 with a promise of $200 million only, then Executive Director Richard Feachem stated he was not worried about the future funding intentions of the U.S. and other major donors. Accordingly, the Global Fund hovered around $1 billion-rounds only, Rounds 1-7. Now six years later, on the heels an actual decision to cut $3 billion of fully qualified Phase I proposals in Round 8 by 10% and Phase II proposals by 25%, the new Executive Director Michel Kazatchkine dares to "dismiss" concern by AIDS activists about the rationing of Global Fund dollars and the fact that the till is nearly empty for funding new initiatives in 2009. (See story below.)

Kazatchkine's hopes to "cut the cuts" are just that - hopes. How does Kazatchkine plan to convince donors that failing to support expansion of the Global Fund will undermine their stated concern about healthy populations? How does he plan to undue the undermining of impacted countries' expectations about the sustainability of full funding for quality proposals to the Global Fund? How is he so confident that there are 10% "efficiency" gains in the high quality proposals submitted in Round 8 during the first two years, and that the 25% cuts in years 3-5 won't cut programming to the bone? (Let's see how efficient the Global Fund or the U.S. Department of Defense would be under the same cuts.)

Instead of indirectly criticizing activists to speaking the truth to powerful donors, Kazatchkine should be supporting their efforts to highlight rich countries' obligations to fully fund the Global Fund.

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Global Fund chief seeks to calm fears of AIDS funding cuts
Sat Dec 6, 3:58 pm ET

DAKAR (AFP) – The head of the Global Fund to fight AIDS on Saturday dismissed criticism by support groups of a possible 25 percent funding cut, saying that international donors are honouring their commitments.

Michel Kazatchkine told AFP during an AIDS conference in Senegal that he was "cautiously optimistic" there would not be large funding cuts despite the global economic downturn, after warnings of devastating results from campaigners.

"In my discussions with leaders up to now I have not heard of any donor that is not ready to honour their commitments to the Global Fund," Kazatchkine said.

"If the replenishment (of the fund) allows it, we will cut on the cut. The 25 percent could become 10 percent, or five percent or even zero. The cutis not a final irreversible decision."

The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, created by the G8 group of industrialized nations in 2002, accounts for one quarter of all international donations to fight AIDS.

Earlier on Saturday, non-governmental organisations warned of drastic reductions in the availability of HIV testing or medicines if the Global  Fund pushed ahead with a proposed 25 percent funding cut in two years' time.

The cut would come on top of a 10-percent cost reduction in funding which the Global Fund announced it would aim for in its last round of grants.

While Kazatchkine also said he had not heard of any donors willing to increase their contributions, he said that Western governments acknowledge the importance of healthy populations to economic vibrancy.

"People have understood that health is key to development. There can be no economic growth of you do not have healthy people," he said.

"A further 25 percent cut will be disastrous," Peter Bujari of the Tanzania Health and Development Trust earlier told a press conference in Dakar at the 15th ICASA conference on AIDS in Africa, which runs until Sunday.

Bujari calculated that a 25 percent cut would lead directly to 341,000 people being denied HIV tests in 2013 in Tanzania.

"Our cry is: if money can be found to solve the credit crunch, if money can be found to save companies manufacturing toys for rich people (and) manufacturing cars, surely money can be found to fund HIV/AIDS in full," Sam Kapembwa, of the Zambian National AIDS network, added.

Kazatchkine said the current 10 percent reduction is to come from "efficiency gains."

"I do not know how difficult it is but I believe (the 10 percent reduction) will be feasible without actually decreasing the number of people getting the services at the end level," he added.

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