The Global Fund's Executive Director Richard Feachem arrived today in Arusha for a meeting with a delegation of East African Heads of State on the role of the Global Fund in meeting the Millennium Development Goals.

Donor countries have broken their promises to fully fund the Global Fund, and will aggressively oppose the launch of a new funding round during the upcoming Board Meeting, according to activists.

"It will be impossible for the Global Fund to aid in the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals if the Global Fund is bankrupt and forced to close its doors due to donor country stinginess," said Siama Musine, Kenya Organisation of People Living with HIV/AIDS (KOPLWA).

The Global Fund needs at least $3.5 billion in 2005 in order to pay for the renewal of grants now reaching their 2 year anniversary, and to finance the launch of two new funding rounds.

Donor countries are preventing the growth of the Global Fund in 2005 and delaying the launch of a scheduled Round 5 call for proposals in November in order to relieve themselves of paying their fair share of money to the Global Fund next year, according to activists. "Next week in Arusha the board of the Global Fund must agree to a new round of AIDS, TB, and malaria proposals. The members of the board, including rich governments, must not turn their backs on the original promise of the Global Fund to be a "war chest" in fighting HIV/AIDS and on the millions of people who will die without treatment. Countries are relying upon the Global Fund to fill the funding gaps for AIDS medicines and more healthcare workers", said Patricia Asero Ochiemg, Dandlora Community AIDS Support Organization (DACASA), who is an adherence counselor in the ARV clinic at Mbagathi District Hospital. Money already earmarked for Kenya from an earlier round of funding is expected to provide antiretroviral therapy to 4,000 people in the first 2 years and fund the training of 1,800 health workers.

Some donor countries, particularly the U.S., have favoured their own bilateral programs over support for the Global Fund, an independent, evidence based, multilateral funding mechanism. The U.S. program, PEPFAR, has come under harsh criticism for its funding of unproven abstinence only prevention and the procurement of more expensive brand name medicines.

"The Global Fund and its donors must not close the best chance we have to drastically increase the number of people on antiretrovirals", said James Kamau, Kenya Treatment Access Movement (KETAM).

East African HIV/AIDS treatment activists plan a public rally outside the Arusha hotel where Board Members will be meeting, in order to lobby the Global Fund Board to launch a new funding round immediately. "We will be in Arusha when the Global Fund meets next week in order to remind board members that their decisions have life and death consequences for people directly outside their doors. We cannot afford to have the Global Fund shut its doors to new grant requests that could save lives and give people hope, " said Nick Maisha, the Movement of Men against AIDS in Kenya (MMAAK).

"As people from the grassroots, we need these drugs. We are not ready to give up. The Global Fund and its board members must not give up on us," said Kassim Issa, a co-founder of Kenya Organisation of People Living with HIV/AIDS (KOPLWA), based in the Kibera slum, the largest slum in Africa.

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