Tensions Simmer at Donor Meeting After Failure to Meet Global Fund Goal

Donor nations' recent failure to provide the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria with the amount of money deemed necessary for its work was met with frustration. The Global Fund replenishment conference in London managed to raise just $3.7 billion of the fund's targeted $7 billion for 2006-07.

That amount would allow the fund to maintain its 300 programs in 130 countries but leave almost nothing for new grants. The shortfall also raised questions about the July G-8 meeting in Scotland, at which leaders pledged to extend universal antiretroviral treatment for patients by 2010. Earlier, the World Health Organization said it had managed to treat just 1 million of the 3 million people in developing countries it aimed to treat by year's end.

"We are really upset and worried," said Gorik Ooms, director-general of Doctors Without Borders-Belgium, which is involved in HIV treatment in the developing world. "We're in a race against time, and I have the feeling that we are going to lose years."

Ooms said the funding shortfall confirmed developing nations' skepticism about the international commitment to fight the global epidemic. Some advocates also said the United States was shrinking back from the multilateral approach to fighting AIDS epitomized by the Global Fund. The United States has provided up to one-third of the fund's money; however, that funding level is a cap set by Congress, not -- as some advocates have claimed -- a long-term, sustainable target.

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