More analysis of the Global Fund announcement and its implications for the Three Diseases Fund ... from the Myanmar Times.
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3DF studies options for new projects
Thomas Kean
Myanmar Times
November 23- 29, 2009, Volume 25, No. 498
THE Three Diseases Fund will undertake a “scoping study” in the coming weeks to identify areas donors can contribute to when the present project cycle is completed in 2011.
The decision comes after the Global Fund board approved all three of Myanmar’s Round 9 funding proposals earlier this month, paving the way for up to US$110 million in aid funding over two years to fight HIV, malaria and tuberculosis.
Mr Bengt Ekman, the chair of the Three Diseases Fund board, said donors would consider shifting the fund’s focus to other health areas, including non-communicable diseases, primary healthcare, and infant and maternal care.
“The donors are committed to continue working together in Myanmar and will commission a scoping study on gaps and needs to be potentially addressed by a new health fund post-2011”, Mr Ekman said.
“The six donors, several of which are key contributors to the Global Fund, are looking forward to ensuring that the two funds will be supplementing one another in the remaining project cycle for the [Three Diseases Fund],” the fund said in a statement.
The Global Fund’s decision, announced on November 12, “marks unprecedented humanitarian engagement” with Myanmar, the statement said.
“The donors to the [Three Diseases Fund] … welcome the Global Fund’s decision and are pleased to see the result of a strong application by the Myanmar Country Coordination Mechanism, a joint effort from UN and nongovernmental agencies, donor representatives in the country along with the national diseases control programs led by the Ministry of Health.”
The Three Diseases Fund was created in early 2006 to fill the funding gap after the Global Fund terminated grants to Myanmar the previous year. Donors – including Australia’s AusAID, European Commission, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden’s Sida and the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development – have provided $100 million to be spent over five years. So far the fund has distributed $73 million to local and international NGOs and community-based organisations.
One local health expert said they “would like to see the Three Diseases Fund become the Health Fund to support national health plans” and pointed to further opportunities created by the United States’ decision to increase humanitarian aid to Myanmar.
“HIV is now well funded so the US can focus on other health issues such as tobacco control, undernutrition or reproductive health. This is a big opportunity for America,” said the moderator of HIV Information for Myanmar, a widely respected blog that monitors aid work in Myanmar.
“The global HIV funding environment in the five years since Global Fund-resourced activities last took place in Myanmar has changed significantly. As [former UN Secretary General] U Thant once said: ‘It is no longer our resources that limit our decisions; it’s our decisions that limit our resources.’”
The HIV Information for Myanmar moderator said the Global Fund’s presence in Myanmar was an “important change in international development assistance” but cautioned, “now the hard part begins”.
“Myanmar will need to reduce its budget by 10 percent, just like all countries. If the Principal Recipients meet their self-defined targets then they will receive the full amount” of funding from the Global Fund. “If all goes well a grant agreement will be signed before Thingyan and the money will start to flow.”
HIV Information for Myanmar can be accessed at: http://www.hivinfo4mm.org/.
http://www.mmtimes.com/no498/n005.htm
