AP:Wealthy countries not giving enough to help poor ones fight disease AIDS

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Wealthy countries not giving enough to help poor ones fight disease AIDS By HELEN BRANSWELL The Canadian Press

TORONTO - Canada and most other members of the G8 are failing to meet their fair share of the cost of financing the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Global AIDS Alliance said Thursday.

The group called on Canada to step up its contribution to the Global Fund by $60 million Canadian and to make a long-term funding pledge to the organization, which needs security of funding in order to meet its commitment to provide, for life, AIDS drugs to a growing number of HIV-positive people in developing countries.

Only France among the exclusive club of the world's wealthiest nations is providing its fair share of the Global Fund's budget, Dr. Zeitz, executive director of the alliance, said in a teleconference held in advance of the 16th International AIDS Conference, which opens Sunday in Toronto.

"Canada is not meeting its commitments," Zeitz said, adding Canada's spending of about $250 million this year and next represents about four per cent of the Global Fund's need when the country should be providing five per cent of the fund's budget.

The Canadian International Development Agency didn't agree with the suggestion that Canada is shirking a commitment to the Global Fund, or to the fight against HIV/AIDS.

"Canada is paying its fair share to the Global Fund, and more broadly to the overall fight against HIV/AIDS and other major diseases in developing countries," CIDA spokesperson Bronwyn Cruden said in an e-mail, noting Ottawa has contributed more than $800 million Canadian to international HIV/AIDS programs since 2000.

"Canada's replenishment contribution represents approximately 5.7 per cent of the $3.7 billion US total amount pledged for the replenishment period. This percentage is significantly larger than Canada's generally assigned 'fair share' of four per cent."

Zeitz said other G8 partners are even further off the mark than Canada, with Germany contributing less than half its fair share and Britain donating only about 75 per cent.

The fair share targets Zeitz cited are based on the dues these countries pay to maintain the United Nations, which established the Global Fund in 2001.

Zeitz also expressed concern that the new Canadian government may be less interested in contributing to the Global Fund in future, preferring perhaps to funnel funding directly to affected countries than pool it with monies contributed by other governments and charitable foundations.

"It's my sense and the sense of the activists in Canada that we're collaborating with . . . that this government is more keen on focusing its own effort through its own programs rather than working in partnership with an entity like the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria," he said.

"In general, wealthy governments like to control the money. They like to develop a program and bring it down to the country and plant their flag."

But having multiple donors, each requiring its own paperwork to ensure funds are being properly spent, puts an unnecessarily heavy bureaucratic burden on the countries receiving the assistance, Zeitz and others said during the briefing.