Africa Needs to Fill $4 Billion Global Fund Shortfall
More fallout from the global financial crisis. From the East African:
Africa requires at least $12 billion for its HIV/Aids response in the next three years to stem the scourge, although this financial injection is threatened as donors hold back due to mismanagement of funds.
The continent faces an uphill task to bridge the current gap of $4 billion, according to the United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids (UNAids), a shortfall that could cause more deaths.
The UNaids is proposing in a new report that African countries need to come up with new ways of mobilising for funds.
“Revenue could be obtained by taxing alcohol and tobacco consumption or the use of mobile telephones and public-private partnerships,” says the report adding countries could also tap into loans by the African Development Bank.
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Global Health and Development Beat
Cholera – The Sorsogon provincial health office in the Philippines is reporting 18 cholera related deaths.
Cholera – Haiti is beginning a pilot program to vaccinate against cholera.
MDGs – Belize has shown great success in reaching the MGDs, including reporting zero maternal deaths in 2011.
Malaria – Bhutan’s Vector-borne Disease Control Programme (VDCP) report stated that malaria cases declined from 40,000 in 1994 to 194 in 2011, and deaths from 42 to one during the same period.
HIV/AIDS - Russian scientists are testing an HIV vaccine.
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The Players
DFID -India’s finance minister signaled to the the UK that India no longer needs aid from Great Britain.
UNICEF – In a Time magazine essay, Director Anthony Lake called stunting the “global crisis you have never heard of.”
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Buzzing in the Blogs
The Daily Beast’s Michelle Goldberg says that international family planning programs could be seriously imperiled in the next administration should the GOP win.
There’s reason to believe Romney would go even further than Bush did. He’s already signaled a desire to cut some of the international HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs that Bush championed. At a New Hampshire town hall in October, he was asked if he would “continue the tradition that was laid forth by the Bush administration” of funding global health. “I am very reluctant to borrow lots more money to be able to do wonderful things if those things can be done by people making charitable contributions or other countries that are wealthy,” he responded.
If Romney is willing to slash American funding for HIV/AIDS, which has significant Christian conservative support, it seems likely he’d be willing to do the same for USAID’s family planning programs, which don’t. USAID remains the world’s largest source of birth control for poor countries—a role it played even under Bush. If that changes, as Liberia shows, the consequences for the world’s most vulnerable women will be horrific.
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Capital Events
Monday
9:00
12:00
Do Aid or Oil Revenue Windfalls Really Undermine Accountability? An Experiment in Indonesia CGD
Tuesday:
9:30 AM
The Global Internet and the Free Flow of Information MAP Forum.
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By Mark Leon Goldberg and Tom Murphy
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