Donor nation funding for HIV remains at 2008 levels, Kaiser Family Foundation/UNAIDS analysis says

Jul 20 2012

A funding analysis released on Wednesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) and UNAIDS found that "[f]unding to fight HIV/AIDS in low- and middle-income countries has remained flat at $7.6 billion," Politico Pro reports (7/18). "Overall donor government support for AIDS has been flat since 2008, which marked the end of rapid increases in donor disbursements of more than six-fold over the 2002 to 2008 period," according to a KFF/UNAIDS press release (7/18). The report examines donor government funding to recipient countries, as well as contributions to multilateral organizations such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS Tuberculosis and Malaria and UNITAID, according to the Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog.

"The United States was the largest donor in the world, giving more than half of all the funding that came from donor governments in 2011, the Kaiser/UNAIDS report showed, part of what the report called a 'subset of donor governments' that has provided the bulk of the response to the epidemic for the last 10 years, that also includes the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark," the blog writes. According to "Science Speaks," Jen Kates, vice president and director of global health and HIV policy for the Kaiser Family Foundation and one of the report's authors, indicated that last year's drop in HIV funding resulted from new PEPFAR reporting requirements that delayed the disbursement of committed funds (Barton, 7/18). "International investments still account for two-thirds of funding for HIV in Africa, the continent most affected by the epidemic," Paul De Lay, deputy executive director for Programme at UNAIDS, said, adding, "Although more and more countries are increasing domestic investments for HIV, investments from donor governments remain an essential resource," according to the joint press release (7/18). Devex's "Development Newswire" notes that "[t]his is while developing countries have scaled up domestic spending in the fight against the epidemic," but "the world is still some $7 billion short" of UNAIDS estimated funding needed by 2015 (Ravelo, 7/19).