Bono urges G8 nations to open purses in fight against AIDS
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Rock star Bono on Tuesday urged wealthy nations to step up donations to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria “aggressively” at a major donor meeting in Berlin this week.
“When something works this well it deserves to be scaled up — aggressively. No more excuses for under-funding this most high-minded public health mechanism,” the U2 singer said in a statement released by his Africa advocacy group DATA.
The group called on Group of Eight countries to go beyond a promise made at their June summit in Germany to give 60 billion dollars (42 billion euros) for HIV/AIDS over the next few years, of which half had already been pledged by the United States.
The 60 billion dollars includes six to eight billion dollars for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
“The G8 summit outcome was disappointing. This conference is a real chance for Germany and the G8 to demonstrate that they will invest in programmes that have a real impact,” DATA’s European Director Oliver Buston said.
The cash-strapped Global Fund will begin a three-day donor meeting in the German capital on Wednesday in a bid to replenish its coffers to fight the three diseases which it says claim six million lives a year.
It has said that it needs between 12 and 18 billion dollars to fund its existing programmes and initiate new ones between 2008 and 2010.
The meeting will be attended by delegations from the G8 nations, UN agencies and non-governmental organisations and will be addressed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Germany is expected to announce that it will waive Indonesia’s bilateral debt on condition that Jakarta invests the equivalent amount in programmes to fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis through the fund.
The Global Fund was set up in 2002 at the instigation of then-UN secretary general Kofi Annan.
It has so far spent some seven billion dollars in grants for 450 programmes in 136 different countries.
Filed by Ivana Jankovic under Development, Health and Infectious Disease