Search
  1. Home
  2. Africa

World Bank And IMF hampering AIDS funding - The Lancet

    JOHANNESBURG

    Multilateral financial organisations are preventing foreign aid from reaching HIV/AIDS programmes in developing countries, according to an article in the Lancet journal.

    In the latest issue of the journal, Ted Schrecker of the University of Ottawa and Gorik Ooms of Medecins Sans Frontieres warned that expenditure ceilings for public health, created by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), disallowed outside investment in their health programmes.

    In Uganda, for example, of the $201 million approved last year by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, only US $186 million had been disbursed as a result of these measures.

    The journal said: "[The existence of public health expenditure ceilings] reveals the dark underside of the industrialised world's grand rhetoric about improving the health of the poor. At the very least, the World Bank and the IMF owe the developing world an unequivocal commitment that they will be part of a solution to the health funding problem, instead of perpetuating it."

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

    Share this article

    Our ability to deliver compelling, field-based reporting on humanitarian crises rests on a few key principles: deep expertise, an unwavering commitment to amplifying affected voices, and a belief in the power of independent journalism to drive real change.

    We need your help to sustain and expand our work. Your donation will support our unique approach to journalism, helping fund everything from field-based investigations to the innovative storytelling that ensures marginalised voices are heard.

    Please consider joining our membership programme. Together, we can continue to make a meaningful impact on how the world responds to crises.

    Become a member of The New Humanitarian

    Support our journalism and become more involved in our community. Help us deliver informative, accessible, independent journalism that you can trust and provides accountability to the millions of people affected by crises worldwide.

    Join