Help in preventing AIDS

To help in preventing AIDS, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in his speech at UN conference for Least Developed Countries, proposed to organize a global AIDS fund to sponsor the fight against AIDS. The world’s wealthy nations are allegedly holding off donations to a proposed UN global health fund, arguing, there are not enough guarantees that the money would be spend correctly, the Associated Press said on May 19, 2001. Reporting from the UN conference for Least Developed Countries in Brussels,

AP said that "many countries" remained skeptical about UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's proposed US $7-10 billion fund to fight the spread of AIDS and other infectious diseases. It quoted Poul Nielson, the European Union's (EU) development commissioner as asking: "What will this fund do better than what we are doing now?". "If we are just talking about a global AIDS fund, we will not participate. It is too narrow," he added. The EU reportedly wants the fund to include other transmittable diseases and tie it to providing cheaper drugs for poorer countries.

The United States is the only large country to contribute to the global fund so far, pledging US $200 million last week. That contribution was criticized by, among others, the US-based Health Gap Coalition as "paltry". The coalition called for Washington to allocate US $2 billion in new money.

Annan said on Thursday in Geneva that the proposed fund would be a major tool for economic growth in the developing countries. He said that plans for the fund are progressing. He noted that the fund should be governed by an independent board, made up of stakeholders including governments from both donor and developing countries, NGOs, the private sector and the United Nations. The running of the fund should be done through a small secretariat, which would draw on a technical advisory body made up of international experts in the fields of health and development. Addressing concerns that the proposed fund would pull money away from existing health programs, Annan stressed that the fund must be additional to existing funds and mechanisms, not just a new way of channeling money that is already earmarked for development.
Although working, the efforts of the United Nations are not enough without actual financial support they ask for. There is still a great need in money and people to fight AIDS in African countries. The UN pledges for the support from economically developed countries to help less developed ones. It is extremely important that the society fights this crucial disease, for it does not belong only to Africans, but to all the inhabitants of the earth. Therefore it is everyone’s problem. People with HIV/AIDS did not choose to be sick. It is time to start helping them before it is too late.