§ Mr. David StewartTo ask the Secretary of State for International Development what proportion of the UK target figure for the Global Fund his Department has pledged for 2004–05. [141501]
§ Hilary BennFor the financial year 2004–05 we will provide £30 million and have extended our current commitment through to 2008 bringing our total planned contribution to the Global Fund to fight AIDS TB and Malaria (GFATM) to US$280 million.
At the 6th Board meeting of the Global Fund held in October, members of the Board of the Global Fund voted to move to a periodic replenishment model on a voluntary basis for all public donors, complemented by additional ad hoc donations. This is now the agreed system for contributions to the Global Fund and should put the Fund on a firmer financial footing.
Future UK funding will be subject to the GFATM reflecting a clear poverty focus, achieving a better financing system, integrating the Fund's activities more effectively with national programmes and meeting agreed benchmarks to monitor its effectiveness. We have been working closely with the Fund on all of these issues and made some good progress at the recent Board meeting held in October—particularly on improving the financing system by moving to a more reliable system of 1004W replenishment based on commonly agreed performance measures. Good results will encourage increased contributions to the Global Fund—both from the UK and, importantly, from the wider international community and this will help to ensure its future as an effective instrument to tackle these terrible diseases.
Our contribution to the GFATM reflects only part of the UK's significant contribution to the fight against HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria. At country level, DFID has committed over £1.5 billion since 1997 to strengthening health systems so that better care and drugs can be delivered. Our commitment to HIV/AIDS is demonstrated by the increase in bilateral spending from £38 million in 1997–98 to over £270 million in 2003–04. We are now intensifying our efforts to tackle the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In the recently published "Call for Action", we state that we will make HIV/AIDS a priority for the extra £320 million the UK will be devoting to development in Africa by 2006. We will also double our core funding of UNAIDS.
We also contribute to other global partnerships, which work on different aspects of these diseases. For example DFID has contributed £48 million over four years (1999–2003) to Roll Back Malaria, a global partnership which aims to halve the world's malaria burden by 2010. This financial year we are providing some £1.2 million in support for public private partnerships to develop a new generation of affordable drugs required for malaria control. DFID plays a major role in supporting TB control and the adoption of good practice in countries such as India, Russia, Zambia, Nepal, Bolivia and South Africa. The UK is also a member of the coordinating Board of the global Stop TB partnership and in 2002–03 we provided £0.75 million to the partnership.