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Press Release |
OTHER PRESS RELEASES |
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28 November 2006 |
The Global Fund Suspends Grants to Chad
Geneva - The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has temporarily suspended its two grants in Chad.
The Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM) of Chad has been told to put in place a new structure that will ensure effective management of the two ongoing Global Fund grants to the country. The two concerned grants – one each to fight HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis (TB) – have a combined Global Fund commitment of US$10.4 million.
The Global Fund’s decision was based on several reviews undertaken by auditors, and the Local Fund Agent, which revealed evidence of misuse of limited amounts of funds at several levels and the lack of satisfactory capacity by the Principal Recipient (PR) and sub-recipients (SR) to manage the Global Fund’s resources. However, despite these serious findings, the Global Fund is satisfied to note that grant activities have yielded substantial results in terms of people reached, infections prevented, and lives saved.
The grant suspension is not directly linked to the ongoing military conflict in the country.
A high level mission from the Global Fund has met with the key stakeholders and partners in Chad to discuss the need for a restructuring to ensure sound grant management, and the CCM has been given to the end of November to develop a feasible plan. Grant disbursements have been suspended until a satisfactory new structure can be agreed upon.
In the interim period, the Global Fund will work with the Principal Recipient to ensure that life-saving treatment and other essential services for people in need are not interrupted. The Global Fund remains committed to supporting efforts to combat HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria in Chad.
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The Global Fund is a unique global public/private partnership dedicated to attracting and disbursing additional resources to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. This partnership between governments, civil society, the private sector and affected communities represents a new approach to international health financing. The Global Fund works in close collaboration with other bilateral and multilateral organizations to supplement existing efforts dealing with the three diseases.
The Global Fund has approved grants for more than 460 programs in 136 countries with a total commitment of US$ 6.8 billion. As of June 2006, 544,000 people had begun antiretroviral (ARV) treatment through Global Fund-supported programs, a more than 40 percent increase over six months earlier. Taken together, Global Fund-supported programs to combat malaria had distributed 11.3 million insecticide-treated bed nets as of June 2006. In addition, tuberculosis programs have detected and treated more than 1.4 million TB cases under DOTS, the internationally-approved TB control strategy.
Further information, please contact:
The Global Fund |
Jon Lidén |
