24276: (news) Chamberlain: Global Fund approves new grants to Haiti, China (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     GENEVA, Feb 15 (Reuters) - The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis
and Malaria announced on Tuesday it had approved a further $119 million in
grants to continue life-saving projects in 16 countries, including Haiti
and China.
     Some $35.5 million, more than a third of the total, will go to prevent
and treat HIV/AIDS in Haiti, which has the worst epidemic of the killer
disease in the Americas, a statement said.
     China's efforts to control a tuberculosis epidemic in poor provinces
will receive a fresh grant of $22.7 million, while a project to control
malaria in its southern provinces of Yunnan and Hainan will get $2.8
million, it said.
     It marked the first time that the board of the Geneva-based fund, a
private-partnership set up in 2002 as the brainchild of U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan, approved renewed funding for an initial batch
of project grants approved two years ago.
     "This is the first point at which funding can be discontinued if
grants are not well spent or if performance doesn't seem to meet the
targets laid out," Global Fund spokeswoman Rosie Vanek told Reuters.
     The fate of four other initial projects, in three countries (Honduras,
Laos and Senegal), had not been decided, she said.
     In all, the Global Fund has approved $3.1 billion for more than 300
grants in 127 countries.
     In January 2004, it suspended payments to the Ukraine over concern at
mismanagement and slow progress of a programme to boost the number of AIDS
sufferers on anti-retroviral drugs. It resumed funding to a new partner
there two months later.