CANADA ANNOUNCES NEW FUNDING FOR OVERSEAS HIV/AIDS

UNCLAS OTTAWA 003591 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPT FOR OES, WHA, AND AF HHS FOR OFFICE OF GLOBAL HEALTH AFFAIRS CDC FOR ASSOC DIR FOR GLOBAL HEALTH E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KHIV TBIO EAID CA XA SUBJECT: CANADA ANNOUNCES NEW FUNDING FOR OVERSEAS HIV/AIDS EFFORT ¶1. Canada's International Cooperation Minister Josee Verner announced on December 1, World AIDS Day, C$120 million to fight HIV/AIDS overseas. This is over and above what Canada has previously pledged to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. The new funding will support global efforts focused on prevention, strengthening health systems, promoting gender equality and women's empowerment, and promoting children's rights, specifically of those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. Canadian programming on HIV/AIDS will continue to rely on working through partnerships and concentrates on South Africa, Tanzania, Mozambique, Zambia, Ukraine, Haiti, and the Balkans. ¶2. Of the total, C$41 million will go to support research in prevention (C$20 million for vaccine research, C$15 million for development of microbicides, and C$6 million to support collaborative Canadian-African research on HIV/AIDS prevention). C$20 million over two years will go to Tanzania to support the government's HIV/AIDS plans, C$10 million over five years will go to Mozambique for the same purposes, and C$4.4 million (over five years) will go to South Africa. Funding will go also to a variety of Canadian and international NGOs working in Haiti (C$19 million over five years),the Balkans (C$7 million over four years to NGOs for work among adolescents),Africa and Vietnam (C$4.9 million for "sustainable livelihood options"),Ukraine, Russia and Georgia (C$3 million over three years targeted at programs for injected drug users),Zimbabwe (C$2.5 million for three years focused on preventing mother-to-child transmission),and smaller amounts for NGO programming in Malawi, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Ghana, and Cameroon. ¶3. The geographic and organizational (as well as programmatic) distribution of the funding Minister Verner announced on World AIDS Day highlights several hallmarks of Canada's support for HIV/AIDS programming. The vast majority of Canadian funding is targeted at programs in Africa, and the Canadian preference is to work through partners. As indicated above, governments are partners on some programs, and NGOs are partners on others. At least 16 NGOs and several quasi-governmental agencies will receive portions of the C$120 million announced by Verner. ¶4. This C$120 million is separate from Canada's support for global programming against infectious diseases channeled through the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Even so, Canada is presently the seventh largest contributor to the Global Fund according to Fund data (in terms of pledges to the paid up as of December 2006) with total contributions of USD 431 million since 2001. ¶5. Observers expect that Minister of Health Tony Clement will announce new funding for domestic HIV/AIDS programming within the next couple of months. Visit Canada's Classified Web Site at http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/ottawa WILKINS