Christof Maletsky
4 December 2008
NAMIBIA could run out of money for AIDS programmes funded by the Global Fund after the country was once again refused funding of its projects for the next five years.
Its proposals failed to meet the required standards.
A consortium, consisting of Government and several non-governmental organisations, had requested more than US$160 million to fund some of their HIV projects over a five-year period but received nothing.
The independent Technical Review Panel (TRP), which considered the grants and referred them to the Board of the Global Fund for approval at the last meeting in November, did, once again, not find the Namibian proposal on HIV-AIDS to be of sound technical quality.
The result is that, with the current Global Fund money running out next year, there could be a funding gap because the next round for the consideration of proposals is only in November next year.
The first and only HIV-AIDS funding Namibia received from the Global Fund was US$104 million in 2002 but it took them around two years to disburse it.
The country has since tried and failed twice to access further funding for AIDS programmes.
Namibia ranks among the top five worst HIV-affected countries in the world.
"Despite considerable efforts to scale up HIV interventions, HIV prevalence is stabilising but not dropping.
One of the key drivers of the epidemic is the high levels of multiple and concurrent sexual partnerships in a society with very low levels of marriage," Namibia wrote in the rejected proposal.
"Thus every Namibian is at risk although not everybody is at equal risk."
With the US$4160 million Namibia was hoping to reduce HIV prevalence among sex workers and youth between the ages of 20 to 24, among other things.
A study done in Katutura (Windhoek) revealed that 70 per cent of the sex workers tested were HIV positive while 39 Namibians get infected with HIV every day.
The Government and its partners were also hoping to use part of the money to train more nurses, pharmacists and other medical staff to cope with the disease as well as provide more support to orphans and vulnerable children.
A study done in 2006 revealed that only 16,5 per cent of the OVC received at least one type of free external support in that year.
Namibia spends around US$640 a year per patient on anti-retroviral drugs and laboratory tests.
The proposal said revised costing revealed that focusing on preventing new infections was key to financial sustainability and that the importance of continued external donor funding cannot be underestimated.
It was submitted after several consultations, including the one on April 2 this year which was attended by 119 delegates of the private sector, Government, faith-based organisations, non-governmental organisations and people living with HIV-AIDS.
Namibia's failure to secure the funds comes as a blow because Namibia was recently recognised by UNAIDS as an example of good work done to curb the disease.
Yesterday, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Kahijoro Kahuure, took out an advertisement in daily newspapers to inform the AIDS fraternity about the Global Fund decision but also to indicate that they will start working on a new proposal that will be submitted before the end of May next year.
Kahuure said the TRP strongly encouraged Namibia to resubmit the proposal after making revisions.
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