Excerpts

Author:

Bernard Rivers

Article Type:

Article Number: 9

ABSTRACT "Why is there not a single representative on the Global Fund Board from the area of the world with the highest rate of HIV infection - southern Africa?"

Following are brief excerpts from contributions to Postings Four to Six of the GFO Discussion Forum. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of GFO or Aidspan.

• “I would like to know what are the dates for the next call for proposals.”

• “Faith-based and other community-based organizations are requested to participate in an Internet survey on the responsiveness of the Global Fund and the Country Coordinating Mechanisms to their efforts to scale up their programs to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria.”

• “Why is there not a single representative on the Global Fund Board from the area of the world with the highest rate of HIV infection – southern Africa? And has the compilation of the board taken cognisance of the rapidly expanding rates of infection in the Russian Federation or the Caribbean or India?”

• “I’ve been receiving information on the Global Fund on several occasions, but I must confess that it is hard to understand some of the policies on submission of proposals… I’m in the grassroots where the rubber meet the road, and sincerely, it is challenging as we would want to reach out and help, but the resources are limited.”

• “On treatment, Richard Feachem [should say] that a six-fold increase in people under ARV’s in Africa in 2004 as a result of the first round of funding proposal (“up” to 180,000) is ridiculously low. That it is the responsibility of country coordinating mechanisms to propose robust treatment plans that move beyond pilot project principles. That the WHO figure is 3 million by 2005 and that the world is going to fall grotesquely short of that [unless] funding and capacity building increase dramatically. That the figure in 2006 should be another 50% of the next 5 million people who will need to enter treatment that year. And that 50% is not enough after 2006. In other words, Richard Feachem and the Global Fund could act like the advocates for treatment that they need to be, both in facilitating treatment-centered proposals and in demanding escalating, not back pedalling or plateauing, dollars for the Fund.”

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