Global Health Fund must be accountable: Activists

MUMBAI: The Global Health Fund encourages Ind ians to ask questions about how its $140 million grant to India is being spent, the organisation’s Geneva-based director Dr Richard Feechem told health activists recently.
But when these activists complained to Dr Feechem at a meeting at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences about the secrecy surrounding the year-old Fund’s two rounds of fund dispersal, he replied that Indians are responsible for ensuring that the money is used properly.
The Geneva-based Global Fund Board will disburse $3.4 billion over five years to developing countries to fight AIDS, TB and malaria, Dr Feechem said. The Fund was formed at the 2001 G-8 summit in Genoa, supported by the world’s richest nations.
The US contributes the major share of the funds, supported by Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. Around five per cent comes from private foundations, corporations and individuals.
But critics complain that there is little information about how the Fund decides its priorities, who gets the grants and how much they receive.
The lack of transparency has allowed controversial organisations such as the the AIDS Research and Control Centre (ARCON), Mumbai— a collaboration between the University of Texas and the Maharashtra government— to receive clearance for its project to provide “improved access to care of persons with HIV/AIDS, including anti-retroviral therapy’’.
ARCON’s director Subhash Hira is the subject of a court investigation into his role in an illegal vaccine trial on HIV/AIDS patients.
Of the $100 million the Fund has sanctioned for the HIV/ AIDS programme in India, ARCON’s budget proposal seeks $12 million. However, Dr Hira said that this amount is yet to be negotiated with the Fund, and will be shared with NGO partners in Bangalore and Chennai.
Dr Hira dismissed as “irrelevant’’ the “age-old wild allegations’’ against him. ARCON has a credible trackrecord, which is appreciated by the state and national level governments and AIDS patients, he claimed.
While Global Fund managers confirmed that ARCON is a “major beneficiary’’, they refused to confirm or deny sanctioning the $12 million. They said such details are only available with the National AIDS Control Organisation.
Dr. Feechem explained that the Fund does not deal directly with the government but is advised by a 23-member Country Coordinating Mechanism chosen by the Union ministry of health.
This coordinating unit is heavily loaded in favour of industry organisations such as FICCI, AASOCHEM and CII; NGOs set up by retired bureaucrats; AIDS organisations (like YRG Care in Chennai which is one of the major beneficiaries of the Fund); Central government bureaucrats and international aid agencies.
Dr Feechem claimed that the Fund is merely a “passive dispenser of funds’’, and said it was up to Indians to ensure transparency and accountability. But activists disputed that contention, saying the Fund cannot wriggle out of its responsibility.