25 July 2006, Durban
Programme Director
Replenishment Vice-Chair, Sven Sandström;
Global Fund Board Vice-Chair, Dr Lieve Fransen;
Global Fund Executive Director, Professor Richard Feachem;
Honourable Ministers;
Donors and Funders
Distinguished delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen
Good morning and welcome to my home city of Durban and to our beautiful country, South Africa. Please accept my apology as I could not be with you last evening during the reception. I believe officials from my Ministry have relayed to you my sincere greetings and welcomed you on behalf of the government of South Africa. I trust that you have enjoyed our hospitality and our selection of the finest wines.
Most of you have been here since the Global Fund Partnership Forum, which started on Saturday and I hope that you have found time in your busy schedule to experience the hospitality of our citizens, to experience our culture, in particular our extraordinary cuisine and unique artifacts as well as to take a walk along our lovely beaches. I invite those that have not yet had an opportunity to do so to take time to experience what Durban has to offer.
Programme Director, the Partnership Forum is an important structure in the architecture of the Fund and has significant implications for the replenishment process. It is within this context that I wish to make a comment or two on the Partnership Forum. I wish to acknowledge that the Partnership Forum was approached with a sense of seriousness it deserves and the structure of the meeting allowed for a meaningful participation by all and sundry. It was indeed a success.
I wish to recommend that we strengthen this important process, firstly by replicating it in-country through national partnership fora, which would extend participation to people whose participation at the Partnership Forum was limited due to financial and other constraints. Secondly, we can strengthen this process by giving due recognition to the role of government in the process. Sadly, the evaluation of the Partnership Forum was silent with respect to recognizing the role of government.
In previous occasions I have referred to our National Health Act that provides for the establishment of a Consultative Health Forum, a legislative framework that accords all stakeholders a platform to express themselves with regard to all health issues that extend beyond HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
This forum is convened by government as it exercises of its stewardship role. It is within this legislative framework that we will establish a national partnership forum and also reconsider our country coordinating mechanism model.
As South Africans we are indeed honoured that a country in a region that is highly affected by Tuberculosis, Malaria and HIV and AIDS, and in a region where a significant number of countries are beneficiaries of the Global Fund, was selected to host the mid-term review of the Global Fund Replenishment. Bringing discussions of this nature to a developing country is a demonstration of the commitment of the Global Fund and our development partners to close the resource gap.
Hosting this meeting in this country is also a commitment to ensure predictability and sustainability of funding in developing countries. Financial resources from the Global Fund have become an important and necessary part of health spending in many countries in the African region and other countries of the south, in particular the poorest countries.
Predictable and sustainable financing is one of the major determinants of success in scaling up of interventions for Malaria, Tuberculosis, HIV and AIDS prevention, treatment, care and support.
UNAIDS estimates that 20 to 23 billion US dollars annually is needed globally by 2010 to support scaling up of HIV and AIDS responses in low- and middle-income countries. This figure is certainly significantly higher when estimates for Tuberculosis and Malaria over the same period are factored in.
The Global Fund estimates the funding gap to be 800 million US dollars for Round 6 and 2.1 billion US dollars for 2006-2007.
Let me acknowledge upfront that donors have a significant number of competing priorities for limited funds, and that they also have a wide variety of different channels to get their funding to the end recipients, including through bilateral funding arrangements.
Chairperson, it is imperative however, that the Global Fund is fully funded in order to fully fund Round 6 and frequent rounds in subsequent years.
At our replenishment conference in London, we emphasized the need for countries with a potential to contribute significantly to do so and in this regard the Global Fund was tasked to mobilize additional contributions and to report on progress at this mid-term review.
I therefore encourage our development partners to be generous today and tomorrow as well as in the future, open your hearts and wallets and fund this gap.
Failure to do so will have very grave consequences for the future of humanity. As you do so I challenge you to take into account issues of predictability and sustainability by making medium- to long-term pledges that will match the medium- to long-term national strategies to respond to the three diseases.
It is important though, for the Global Fund to demonstrate its added value. It has to continuously prove that it is an effective and premium mechanism to channel donor resources in order to encourage donors to see it as a funding channel of choice in response to the three diseases.
It is equally important for recipients to play their part by utilising resources in an effective, efficient and responsible manner whilst maintaining accountability. This will, and does generate credibility and donor confidence of enormous proportions.
Chairperson, allow me to add quickly that as donors and recipients we all have a joint responsibility for ensuring that the Global Fund has sufficient resources. We must hold true to our commitment to ensure that no fully-costed national plan is left unfunded.
I have repeatedly said that as recipient countries we must bear part of the responsibility to close this funding gap by allocating in an incremental manner, domestic funds in our own budgets, for a sustainable comprehensive response.
We also need to ensure adequate financing of sectors responsible for other social determinants of health such as water, sanitation, housing and education. As we direct the flow of resources towards these sectors we have to focus on strengthening of the health and social system. This will ensure long-term sustainability, predictability and relevance of response to each country and in my view it is one way of addressing “Beyond Phase 2” crisis that some of our countries are likely to face.
South Africa remains committed to increasing investment of domestic resources. An example is that our Comprehensive HIV and AIDS plan is 90% financed through domestic funding.
Budget allocation has tripled over the last four years from just over 1 billion rand in 2002 to1.9 billion rand in 2003 and to 2.9 billion rand in 2004 and 3.5 billion rand in 2005.
We further remain committed to supporting the Global Fund consistent with our potential and ability to do so. We have so far pledged 10 million US dollars over a period of five years from 2003 to 2007. As a gesture of this commitment, I wish to announce that the South African Government will pledge an additional, in this current financial year.
As we deliberate today and tomorrow about replenishment for 2008 and beyond, I challenge all of us to ensure maximum predictability and sustainability of financing national plans in response to the three diseases.
Finally Programme Director, I regret to have to inform you and the distinguished delegates that much as I would have liked to, I will not be able to stay longer in this meeting, duty calls elsewhere and I have to oblige. I shall be leaving you shortly; however, I have full confidence in the team of dedicated senior officials from my Ministry that I shall leave behind with you. I wish you productive and fruitful deliberations.
Thank you