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SA spurns World Banks AIDS money
Tamar Kahn Business Day
2007-07-20

The World Banks HIV/AIDS programme director Dr Debrework Zewdie yesterday expressed disappointment at the South African governments continued refusal of the financial institutions offers to help combat the countrys HIV epidemic, one of the worlds worst.

SA has at least 5,5-million HIV-infected people, according to the governments own estimates. When SAs new R45bn National Strategic AIDS Plan, was launched this year, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said the government would be hard pressed to bankroll the entire plan itself and called on the private sector to help. The ambitious plan maps out SAs strategy for combating HIV and AIDS over the next five years, and has been widely hailed. The government has earmarked R14bn for HIV/AIDS over the three-year medium term expenditure framework.

Zewdie said she had personally been involved in efforts to help the government but had been repeatedly rebuffed. SA doesnt want the World Banks money. We actually lost a lot of money in trying to entice SA to take money from the World Bank. We didnt succeed. Offers of practical help were also declined, she said. We hope the situation will change. The bank stands ready to help, she said. The banks Pretoria office was in constant communication with the government.

Zewdie made her remarks ahead of the 4th International AIDS Society (IAS) conference on HIV pathogenesis, treatment and prevention, which opens in Sydney on Sunday. The gathering is expected to draw 5000 experts from around the world to discuss the latest scientific developments in the prevention and treatment of HIV. They are also due to discuss the latest advances in scientists understanding of the virus itself, and how to put new research findings into practice. Asked in Cape Town yesterday about the World Banks offer and SAs apparent refusal of it, Mlambo-Ngcuka said she had no knowledge of either.

The IAS, the worlds largest independent association of HIV experts, planned to use the conference to launch a global call for governments and bilateral donors to earmark 10% of the funds they allocated to HIV programmes for research, said conference co-chair David Cooper. Many developing countries were battling to meet the demand for AIDS drugs and were concentrating their limited resources on developing implementation programmes without detailed monitoring systems, he said. Many of us are afraid if this rollout of AIDS drugs doesnt go well, and the donors become fatigued and unhappy with some outcomes, then we wont have an evidence base on which to work out why it hasnt gone as well as wed have liked , he said. With Linda Ensor

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