By Roman Zakaluzny
Post Staff Writer
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has found a new organization in Ukraine to administer its AIDS relief cash, after dropping three other organizations in January because of doubts about their reliability.
On Feb. 24, the Global Fund announced that the International HIV/AIDS Alliance will receive $15 million over the next year to take care of the most pressing AIDS issues in Ukraine. The Alliance has yet to formally sign a contract, but should do so soon.
On Jan. 30, the Geneva-based Global Fund suspended $25 million it had pledged to three organizations over two years, citing �challenges in management� and their �slow progress.�
The three organizations were the Ukrainian Ministry of Health, a government-created charity called the Ukrainian Fund to Fight HIV Infection and AIDS, and the United Nations Development Programme in Kyiv.
The Fund also asked that the three groups return all unspent monies already doled out, some $6,750,000 between the three of them, by the end of February. They have yet to oblige.
A new group was found within a month, because the Global Fund did not want to interrupt four main components of its AIDS relief program in Ukraine: support for people living with HIV/AIDS, a �risk reduction� campaign, prevention programs for high-risk groups, and continued monitoring.
One of their targets is to expand the number of people receiving AIDS treatment from less than 60 to 4,000 within two years.
�We have confidence that the [Alliance has] the system in place to handle the challenges in purchasing the medicines and contracting sub-recipients in a transparent and fair manner to enable the program to move forward quickly,� said Global Fund spokesperson Jon Liden. �The Alliance will work closely with the Ministry of Health, and our hope is that eventually the Ministry of Health will again take over the responsibility as Principal Recipient for the grant they originally were responsible for.�
Liden added that within a year or so, the Global Fund hopes to reestablish at least some of the three original groups as beneficiaries of AIDS monies in Ukraine.
The Alliance is a non-governmental organization which began operation in Ukraine in December 2000, and currently administers anti-AIDS programs in 20 developing countries.