REACTION TO SPAIN’S CONTRIBUTION TO THE GLOBAL FUND IS MIXED

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Download PDF Salud por Derecho (Salud), a Spanish right to health foundation, and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) have described the contribution to the Global Fund recently announced by Spain as “unreasonably low.” As reported in a GFO article on 25 July: Around the time of the International AIDS Conference in Washington, DC on 22-27 July, Spain announced that it would contribute €10 million…

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ABSTRACT Salud por Derecho, a Spanish right to health foundation, and Médecins Sans Frontières have described the contribution to the Global Fund recently announced by Spain as “unreasonably low.” An article in GFO 190 had reported that Spain will contribute €10 million for 2012, and that activists and other observers considered it to be a positive development given Spain's current economic situation.

Salud por Derecho (Salud), a Spanish right to health foundation, and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) have described the contribution to the Global Fund recently announced by Spain as “unreasonably low.”

As reported in a GFO article on 25 July: Around the time of the International AIDS Conference in Washington, DC on 22-27 July, Spain announced that it would contribute €10 million (about $12.1 million) for 2012. In that article, GFO said that although the amount is lower than what Spain pledged and contributed in previous years, activists and other observers considered it to be a positive development given Spain’s current economic situation.

However, Salud and MSF do not share that view. Vanessa Lopez, Director of Salud, said, “With this announcement Spain returns as a donor to the Global Fund, but the contribution is so low that its impact will be very limited.”

According to data posted on the Global Fund website, between 2003 and 2009, Spain contributed $578 million, an average of $83 million a year. In 2009, the last year of this seven-year period, Spain contributed $214 million. In 2010, Spain pledged $250 million but ended up contributing only $134 million. The country did not make any contribution in 2011.

Meanwhile, on 25 July, the Global Fund issued a news release in which it referred to Spain’s contribution as “a resumption of funding that signals Spain’s deep commitment to disease prevention and treatment.” Gabriel Jaramillo, General Manager of the Global Fund, said, “I am deeply moved by this contribution, coming in the midst of such a fantastically serious economic crisis.”

According to the Global Fund’s news release, Spain ranks as the ninth largest donor to the Global Fund based on its cumulative contributions.

The news release issued by Salud and MSF is available, in Spanish, on the website of Salud here. A spread sheet containing data on pledges and contributions is available on the Global Fund website here.