Your daily Selection of IRIN Africa PlusNews reports, 11/11/2005

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CONTENT:

1 - UGANDA: Global fund lifts ban on AIDS grants

1 - UGANDA: Global fund lifts ban on AIDS grants

KAMPALA, 11 November (PLUSNEWS) - Uganda on Friday welcomed the release of a

grant package worth US $367 million from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS,

Tuberculosis and Malaria, which the organisation suspended last August amid

allegations of mismanagement.

The grants were frozen following an independent audit by Pricewaterhouses,

which discovered incidents of inadequate monitoring and accounting of

expenditures for one of Uganda's grants to combat HIV. Funding for

life-preserving activities, however, was maintained throughout the suspension

period.

On Thursday, the Global Fund announced that it had lifted its suspension of aid

to Uganda following what it called the country's " intensive efforts " to rectify

" serious mismanagement " of funding.

The package includes two grants to combat HIV/AIDS, two grants targeting malaria

and one grant for tuberculosis.

" Over the past two months, the Global Fund has been heartened by the intensive

efforts of our partners in Uganda, " said executive director Feachem. " We

are very pleased that the progress made enables us to lift the suspension of

Uganda's grants. "

" The lifting of the ban means that the struggle for our people's health will go

on unhindered and that the partnership will continue, " said Nsaba Buturo,

Uganda's information minister.

Buturo maintained that Uganda would remain mindful of the damaging report that

culminated in the ban and said that a judicial commission of inquiry set up by

the government would continue to work to its " logical conclusion " .

The government " will not leave any stone unturned as a reassurance to our

friends we are doing business with, " he said.

Before the funds were released, the East African country signed an aide memoire

setting out action points for the restructured management of the grants to

" ensure effective, accountable and transparent implementation of funded

programmes, " according to a finance ministry statement.

Uganda and Global Fund agreed to establish structures to oversee the

implementation of the five grants, including " a self-assessment to ensure

effective oversight of the Global Fund grants; a continued involvement of the

caretaker management firm Ernst & Young over the next six to nine months to

evaluate the quality and efficacy of all sub-recipients of grants; and a

restructuring process of the grants to streamline implementation, clarify

responsibilities, and simplify grant oversight. "

Uganda, which had won international praise for its anti-AIDS programmes, has

recently come under intense criticism for allegedly backsliding in its

commitments.

Less than a week after the Global Fund announced its suspension, health

campaigners accused the country of succumbing to US pressure to eliminate condom

use in favour of promoting sexual abstinence in its strategy against HIV/AIDS.

Several NGOs alleged that abstinence-only campaigns were responsible for a

massive condom shortage in Uganda that threatened to unravel earlier gains in

fighting the spread of the HI virus.

The country has denied both the charges and the suggestion that there was any

condom shortage of any kind.

The Global Fund, created in 2002 as a joint public-private clearing house, is a

global partnership dedicated to attracting and disbursing resources to prevent

and treat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

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