Kiyonga to spearhead global fund for health

The UN on Monday announced that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had appointed Dr Crispus Kiyonga of Uganda as chairman of the Transitional Working Group for the establishment of the Global AIDS and Health Fund. Kiyonga, who is currently Minister without Portfolio and Acting National Political Commissar in a new Ugandan cabinet, was previously Health Minister and Finance Minister. “Dr Kiyonga is well-known regionally and internationally as a champion of efforts against HIV/AIDS, as well as malaria and tuberculosis (TB),” said UN official Marie Okabe, in making the announcement.

Kiyonga will chair a working group tasked with setting up the Fund, in accordance with interim arrangements agreed upon during a meeting in Belgium earlier this month between UN officials and representatives of the developed and developing nations, NGOs and the private sector. So far, in the region of US $1.4 billion has been pledged to the fund. The Global AIDS and Health Fund had “induced a spirit of hope and anticipation” among African countries, Stephen Lewis, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, told journalists on Monday. Lewis told a news conference at UN Headquarters in New York, USA, that after meeting with high-level officials and grass-roots activists in Kenya, Rwanda and Nigeria in recent weeks, he was “even more confident” that it would be possible to turn the tide of the pandemic despite the challenges facing the African continent.