Global Fund injects over E6.1bn
MBABANE – The Global Fund has to date injected over E6.1 billion to support Eswatini’s response to HIV/ AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis.
This was disclosed during a meeting of the 1ational Emergency 5esponse &ouncil on +I9 AID6 1E5&+A , &ountry &oordinating 0echanism &&0 , media editors and senior reporters yesterday at the +ilton Gar den Inn.
The meeting was aimed at giving an update on how far the country has gone in +I9 response and paving a way forward.
The meeting comes at a time when 1E5&+A is about to launch its 202 to 202 1ational Aids 6trategy by 3rime 0inister 5ussell Dlamini. Established by the 8nited 1ations 81 in 2002, the Global Fund is an international financing and partnership organisation which aims to attract, lev erage and invest additional resources to end the epidemics of +I9 AID6, tuberculosis and malaria, to support the attainment of the 6ustainable De velopment Goals.
Eswatini is both a donor to the Global Fund and an implementer of Global Fund supported programmes. 6ince the inception of the Eswatini and Global Fund relationship, a sum of E . billion 86 has been committed to support +I9 AID6, 0alaria and Tuberculosis, and E .1 billion 86 22 20 1 0 has been disbursed. This was shared by 1E5&+AActing 1ational E[ecutive Director, Dumisani Kunene and &&0 &hief E[ecutive 2fficer &E2 Dr Advocate Dlamini.
Disbursed
According to the figures that were presented, the funds were disbursed between the &oordination Assembly of 1on Governmental 2rganisations &A1G2 and 1E5&+A. 1E5&+A has been a principal re cepient of the fund since 200 and in 201 &A1G2 Moined.
They were both appointed by &&0 and confirmed by Global Fund.
The figures pointed out that a large chunk of the committed funds were channelled to 1E5&+A because it oversees, coordinates and facilitates the national multisectoral response to +I9 AID6.
It was revealed that a total of 1 grants were received by the country to date. A total of 12 grants were for 1E5&+A, while two were channelled to &A1G2.
2verall, Eswatini through the &&0 made a grant proposal to the value of E . billion 86 2 1 when using yesterday¶s e[change rate.
1E5&+A¶s response goes towards a 5esilient and 6ustainable 6ystem for +ealth 566+ , +I9 AID6, malaria and tuberculosis T% .Alarger portion of the committed and utilised funds were towards +I9 AID6 response and T%.
Eswatini was provided with four grants for +I9 AID6 response only of E . billion 86 1 , and one for +I9 and tuberculosis response to the value of E1.2 billion 86
.
In total E . billion 86 1
2 has been spent by 1E5&+A.
Supported
8nder &A1G2, the Global Fund supported +I9 and T% response pro grammes. A total of 86 1 0 was e[pended by &A1G2 on the response.
In terms of the donations that have been made by Eswatini to the Global Fund, the donation is times less than the committed funds.
In 2020 +is 0aMesty King 0swati III pledged E110. million 86 million which was paid in three years. /ast year E1 . million 86 1 mil lion for the Global Fund¶s 6eventh 5eplenishment, covering 202 202 , demonstrating its commitment to alle viating the burden of the three diseases and building strong and resilient health systems. Eswatini has contributed E12 .01 million 86 million to the Global Fund to date. It was disclosed during the meeting and on the Global Fund website that all pledged funds by Eswatini have been paid.
Kunene highlighted that 1E5&+A has started to look at the sustainability of AID6 response given the patterns they have started to observe globally in the Global Fund envelope.
“The global financial envelop is be ing attacked by a lot of other demands such as global warming, polio crisis among others,” he said.
The acting &E2 mentioned that these crises indicated that the global health envelope was suddenly going to shrink. Therefore, he said there was a need to start seriously looking at how AID6 response can be sustained.
1oteworthy, Eswatini is among the countries whose response to +I9 AID6 gained global recognition. According to 6+I06III results per cent of the population knows their +I9 status, per cent of those who tested positive are on treatment and per cent on viral suppression.
Despite these achievements, the &&0 &E2 said there were still pock ets of the population, especially the vulnerable ones, who are hard to reach. Dlamini said through the different stakeholders they were able to bring almost everyone on board to respond to the diseases that Global Fund fo