Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria

Baroness Chalker of Wallasey Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chalker of Wallasey]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak in this debate, which was initiated by my noble friend Lord Fowler. I, too, commend him on his energy, commitment and his determination to keep HIV/AIDS and other diseases at the forefront of debate and always to remind my old department, now DfID, that it has to keep up to the mark. As noble Lords will know, my interest in the health of people in the developing world has gone on for a very long while. I spent more than 10 years at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, six years chairing the Medicines for Malaria Venture and eight years chairing the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, so I have particular interests.

I hope that we can hear from the Minister and the department a strong pledge to the global fund, which is already operating in 151 countries. I also ask the department to look hard at what more can be done to enhance the training of rural health workers, particularly in prevention. The Touch Foundation, at the moment only in America, works in Tanzania, supported also by the Vitol Foundation in this country. The work to prevent disease and to get early diagnosis has meant a much better use of the resources that we get from the global fund. We can be very grateful to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for the $650 million that it has given since 2002, and it has now given a promissory note for another $750 million. However, we can make the money work only if we have people on the ground to communicate with those who do not understand why these diseases develop so strongly.

In the new funding model of the global fund we have a real opportunity. I understand that it is to be piloted in nine countries, which have not yet been disclosed. It will try to get a greater alignment with country schedules and their priorities and to focus on the countries with the highest disease burden and lowest ability to pay. It will make it simpler for the implementers and the global fund, will mean greater predictability of process and financing and will have a real ability to elicit full expressions of demand and to reward ambition. The global fund can do that. However, the new funding model will work only, first, if it is financed, and secondly, if there is a translation of what you can do with the money through the people on the ground. That is why I make an additional plea to the department that it should consider those organisations that can help in prevention and, particularly, in early diagnosis.

My main interest is clearly in malaria and in trying to beat the mosquito in spreading falciparum and vivax. However, we can have success with new drugs only if those on the ground know when, how and in what quantities to apply them, as well as using the nets that for so long the global fund has provided. I therefore ask the Minister two things. First, that we have early notification from the department of what it can give to the global fund but, secondly, that we now focus a lot more on local-level training, maybe through non-governmental organisations such as the Touch Foundation and other good organisations such as AMREF—I can mention many others, but I will not go on. It is no good just putting the money in unless we motivate the people to do the right things.