AIDS Funds "Missing Target" in Namibia

HIV/AIDS patients in Namibia may be losing out as the number of community-based and nongovernmental organizations representing them continues to increase. Umbrella organizations worry that as a result, funds rarely filter down to remote parts of the country where a large proportion of HIV/AIDS patients live.

With hundreds of millions of dollars being pumped into HIV/AIDS efforts each year, "There is competition for funds and we need to root it out," said Zack Makari of Nanaso, the Namibia Network of AIDS Service Organizations.

NGOs with staff who can influence donors and who can write sophisticated funding requests get money easily, while poor ones lose out when their funding requests do not appear "professional," according to Abner Xoagub, coordinator of the National AIDS Coordination Program. "Most of the beneficiaries are Windhoek-based organizations, but do they really go outside where people give their last penny to accommodate people who come back from the cities with the illness? None of these projects go down to Sesfontein or Berseba, they settle in the comfort of the cities," Xoagub said.

Conny Samaria of Lironga Eparu, an organization run by HIV-positive people, said his group found it difficult to get national and international funding despite having first-hand experience of the pandemic. "You have members of my organization who don't even know what they will eat the next day," he commented.

Nanaso, which coordinates the work of AIDS groups, has 60 member organizations, double the figure in 2001, with more applications to be processed. Makari believes there are as many as 110 CBOs and NGOs in Namibia, and only 20 percent are in rural areas.

As the government waits for more than N$180 million (US$26 million) from the Global Fund, Xoagub said they have appealed to the bigger NGOs to work with CBOs in remote areas to ensure the money reaches the people who need it.

Back to other news for October 13, 2003