Speaking amid deepening concern about donations from western countries, Michel Kazatchkine said a looming funding gap could be bridged by innovative financing but also – for the first time – help from emerging giants.
Until now, these countries have been recipients of AIDS funds, not donors. But, Kazatchkine argued, the time was ripe for them to make at least a first step towards providing financial help.
“I believe that in a globalising world, in a world where countries like China are joining, and want to join, world governance, at a time when the G8 is becoming the G20, it is right for these countries to take up a share of the burden,” he told AFP in an interview.
Kazatchkine, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, said he had already flown to Beijing to press his case.
“The Chinese told me they would think about it,” he said. A trip to Delhi is scheduled for next month, he added. Kazatchkine has also been lobbying the petrodollar-flush economies of the Gulf.
“Let’s not forget that in terms of GNP per head, China ranks in the hundreds in the world league table. I don’t say it is a poor country, I would call it a country with poor people.”
New figures have pointed to a worrying slump in funds for the 29-year offensive against AIDS in the wake of the banking crisis.
After a six-year run of double-digit increases, western donors cut back in funding last year to 7.6 billion dollars after 7.7 billion dollars in 2008, according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation and UNAIDS.
Kazatchkine said without funds, a dark future loomed for those waiting to grasp the lifeline.
“When they arrive at AIDS clinics, they will have to be told, ‘Put your name on the waiting list. As soon as we get the drugs, we’ll get back to you.’ But when that day comes around, they will already be dead.”
Published in The Express Tribune, July 24th, 2010.
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