Nigeria, others increase health funding - The Global Fund

The concerted efforts of governments in the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria is manifesting in the increase in country investment on health, according to the Global Fund.


This was made known by the Agency's media manager, Andrew Hurst at the launch of the Global Fund's Fourth Replenishment in Washington DC.

He revealed that Nigeria has invested US$1 billion in treatment, care and prevention for citizens affected by the aforementioned diseases as part of the "Saving One Million Lives" campaign.

A new pledge and commitment of US$150 million for investment in HIV prevention and treatment was also made by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria's Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of Economy.

According to Mr Andrew, "This year, UNAIDS reported, low and middle income countries are for the first time providing more funding themselves for HIV than they are getting from external sources"

He also revealed that four other African countries namely Kenya, Zimbabwe and Malawi also made pledges of US$2million, US$1million and US$500,000 respectively to the Global Fund, while Cote d'Ivoire announced it would contribute $6.4million through the debt-swap Global Fund Debt2Health initiative.

Mark Dybul, Executive Director of the Global Fund said: "These pledges represent the commitment of African countries to fight the three diseases, not only through domestic and international financing, but also by directly contributing to the Global Fund"

"Through these commitments African countries are demonstrating that not only high income or emerging economies can contribute to an organisation like the Global Fund. We are all in this together." he said.

The Global Fund later revealed that the replenishment launch meeting gathered US$12billion. This is 30 per cent higher than the $9.2billion in firm pledges realized in 2010 for the 2011-2013 period.