Global Fund: AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria

Lord Rea Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rea]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, has, as usual, chosen a topic which urgently needs to be addressed. In three minutes I shall try to cut to the quick.

The Global Fund has been an overall success, as everyone has said. DfID has played a major part in this, recognising its transparency and accountability. In fact, the Global Fund itself recently detected and put right a minor accountability problem within its organisation. It was a small fraudulent diversion of funds, I believe, but that was seen to.

The Global Fund is a very focused organisation which funds vertical targeted programmes. However, subsidiary aims are to assist and strengthen national healthcare systems and support civil society. Many, like the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, feel that this should have greater emphasis, as only then will the programme initiated by the Global Fund be sustainable. These aims need to be integrated into the general healthcare provision of the countries concerned. HIV, TB and malaria are a heavy burden but they are only part of the whole infectious diseases picture, let alone the increasing role in the developing world of non-communicable diseases.

In April, the Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, said that, following up its already substantial grant to the transitional funding arrangements to take the place of the missing funds from the cancelled round 11, the UK could increase its contribution to the Global Fund very substantially, as the noble Lord said, in 2013, 2014 and 2015 by up to double the current £384 million pledge. Can the noble Baroness give us some indication of how much it will be and when the amount will be announced? What occasion will the Secretary of State choose to make that statement? The money is urgently needed, as already several programmes have had to be either contracted or postponed. I am worried in particular by the postponement of plans to address emerging threats such as resistance to artemisinin combination therapy, in Myanmar—Burma. That of course is the main, if not the only, weapon against the malaria parasite. I hope that, if a donation is made, other countries will be encouraged to contribute to the fund, as the noble Lord suggested will be the case.