British government is planning to significantly curtail its spending on bilateral aid for HIV and Aids projects in developing countries over the next four years, says a recent data released by the Department for International Development (DFID).
It has been reported that the overall spending by DFID on HIV/Aids will be decreased to £41m by 2015 from the present level of £59.9m meaning a reduction of about 32%.
In regard to region, Asia will see a significant drop of nearly 85% (from £13m to £2m), and in Africa the cut back is comparatively lesser i.e. 17% (from £46.9m to £39m).
This is despite the fact that Britain’s bilateral aid for global health by 2015 will increase from £376m to £723m clocking a 92% rise, in which aid for reproductive, maternal and newborn health will constitute 64% of DFID’s global health funding.
According to the data, the share of funding for HIV and Aids will come down to about 6% in 2014/2015 from the present level of 16%.
This analysis is based on published country-level budgets from DFID. Figures for India, Yemen, and Malawi have yet to be published. It is seven months since the release of the UK aid reviews, which will re-focus British funding on fewer developing countries.
The department says that the drop in bilateral funding will not affect its efforts against HIV/Aids.
“It is wrong to say we are reducing our commitment to tackling Aids and HIV,” said a DfID spokesperson. Through both multilateral and bilateral support Britain will reduce new HIV infections by at least 500,000 among women in Africa, will support 268,000 HIV positive people with treatment and 37,000 women with treatment to prevent transmission to their babies.
DFID added that these figures were only part of the picture, and that overall spending, which included support for multilateral organisations, was not finalised.
Experts say that the reduction in DFID’s bilateral spending on HIV/Aids indicates that it is shifting away from targeting specific diseases, and rather focusing on strengthening of health systems in general.
“DFID may be planning to address the bilateral decrease in HIV/Aids spending through an increase in funding for multilateral initiatives such as the Global Fund,” said Aaron Oxley, executive director of Results UK, an anti-poverty group. “Despite the Global Fund having received the highest possible rating in the multilateral aid review, no new funds have yet been pledged by the UK government. We would like to see this addressed as a matter of some urgency, sending a strong signal of commitment and support for the fight against all three diseases.”
Oxley added that DfID had a good reputation for its bilateral aid, and the cuts in HIV/Aids funding would affect high-quality programmes.
“Every time, they cut, it will hurt,” he said. “It needs to be carefully managed.”
International HIV/Aids Alliance, a global partnership of nearly 40 organisations, also expressed concern at the DfID cuts. “As the detail of these plans becomes clearer there are worrying indications that HIV funding may be dropped completely in some places where it is really needed. The alliance will be monitoring whether funding for HIV reaches those in need, and will work closely with DfID to ensure that key HIV work does not go unfunded, particularly where that work is meant to be funded under other DfID sector budgets in-country.”
