§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assessment he has made of the impact over the last 12 months of the Global Health Fund in tackling(a) HIV/AIDS, (b) tuberculosis and (c) malaria. [149074]
§ Hilary BennThe Global Fund to Fight AIDS. Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) was founded in January 2002. We recognise that the GFATM is still a young partnership and that it has just started to finance programmes within countries. The impact of GFATM is difficult to measure at this early stage but its 2002–03 annual report provides very good evidence of progress made to date on each of these diseases. Disbursement is now accelerating we expect to see more evidence of the impact of the Global Fund.
DFID has been working closely with the Board on effective ways to measure the GFATM's performance and evaluate its processes. We are working to ensure that the GFATM has a clear poverty focus, sound financial systems in place and alignment of its activities with national programmes and processes.