This is a transcript of an Australian radio segment on the 3D Fund.
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ABC Online
AM
New aid fund set up to fight diseases in Burma
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2006/s1743128.htm]
AM - Monday, 18 September , 2006 08:24:00
Reporter: Karen Percy
PETER CAVE: Burma's military junta is facing pressure from the UN Security Council over drug trafficking, human rights abuses, and poor health standards which are having an impact beyond Burma's borders.
Diseases like TB (tuberculosis), malaria and HIV/AIDS are being carried into Thailand and elsewhere by Burmese refugees and smugglers.
Australia is one of six countries to sign on to an EU (European Union) backed program aimed at dealing with these three diseases.
Karen Percy reports.
KAREN PERCY: Burma has one of the worst health records in the world. By some accounts, 40 per cent of the population has tuberculosis.
Malaria afflicts as many as 600,000 people each year, and increased intravenous drug use has driven HIV/AIDS rates sky high.
BOB DAVIS: These are pandemics that we see throughout the world.
KAREN PERCY: Bob Davis is Australia's Ambassador to Burma.
BOB DAVIS: They're very serious issues in our region here. There are cross-border implications in relation to it.
KAREN PERCY: Over the next five years Australia will contribute $15-million to the so-called three diseases fund in Burma, to tackle TB, malaria, and HIV/AIDS.
Europe is leading the charge on the 3D fund, with cooperation from the United Nations and the Government of Burma.
Aung Naing Oo is a political commentator based in Thailand. He says there has been acceptance by international groups, who might have opposed assistance in the past, that help is now needed.
AUNG NAING OO: What they are thinking is the military cannot provide the basic services to the country, to the people, and the situation is getting worse and worse.
KAREN PERCY: Mark Farmaner from the Burma campaign in the UK has welcomed the fund. But he says Burma's Junta must be called to account, especially for its failure to act on the HIV/AIDS problem.
MARK FARMANER: It's dramatically reduced spending on health and education so that it can spend more of its budget on arms.
KAREN PERCY: This isn't the first time the international community has tried to deal with these illnesses.
The US-backed $130-million Global Fund was withdrawn from Burma after concerns were raised about financial abuses by the military regime and restrictions put on the movement and activities of those on the ground.
Mark Farmaner again.
MARK FARMANER: It requires aid agencies to transfer money into regime-owned banks, where they have fixed exchange rates so they can cream off money. They charge higher rates for food that's being delivered in Burma.
The regime is causing a lot of the problems there.
KAREN PERCY: Human rights organisations are concerned about new rules affecting humanitarian aid projects that were adopted in Burma earlier this year.
But Australia's Ambassador in Rangoon, Bob Davis, says the fund partners have made things very clear to the Burmese Government.
BOB DAVIS: That access to projects and other components of humanitarian principles that UN organisations and in fact organisations generally, internationally, have agreed to, need to be a central component of the operating environment for the three diseases fund.
PETER CAVE: Karen Percy put together that report.
