Donations to fight AIDS pandemic rising – UN study

A day after issuing a report showing that last year's infection rate of HIV/AIDS worldwide was the highest ever, the United Nations today released figures demonstrating a clear trend toward rising financial donations to fight the pandemic.

The latest definitive figures combing the aid efforts of major bilateral and multilateral donors show an allocation of $2.2 billion in 2002 to control and combat the disease in the developing world, according to a new study by the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC).

Bilateral aid rose steadily from $822 million in 2000 to $1.1 billion in 2001 and $1.35 billion in 2002 – a 64 per cent increase over three years. Multilateral aid rose from $314 million in 2000 to $460 million in 2002, and total contributions to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria reached $917 million by the end of 2002, 60 per cent of which will target HIV/AIDS.

The report – “Analysis of aid in support of HIV/AIDS control, 2000-2002” – presents the first comprehensive overview of aid allocations to AIDS activities by donor and recipient countries and is being released in advance of the 15th International AIDS conference to be held in Bangkok, Thailand, from 11 to 16 July.

The United States was the largest bilateral donor averaging $793 million per year in 2000-2002, followed by the United Kingdom at $337 million, Japan at $161 million and the Netherlands at $135 million. The International Development Association of the World Bank was the largest multilateral donor with $237 million, followed by UNAIDS with $88 million and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) with $44 million.

Between 2000 and 2002 donors worked in 140 recipient countries, concentrating the majority of their efforts on 25 countries – 10 of them in sub-Saharan Africa. In total, 75 per cent of all funds related to combating AIDS was allocated to Africa. Nigeria was the largest overall recipient with $91 million per year, followed by Kenya with $61 million, Uganda with $53 million and Zambia with $43 million.

The “2004 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic” released by UNAIDS yesterday showed that an estimated 4.8 million people became newly infected with HIV in 2003, more than in any one year before.