RE: KENYA: HIV funding begins at home

[Guest guest]

Be it Global fund, PEPFAR or any other source of funding, it is all foreign support that can never be sustained!!!

This shortage of ARVs has been a timed bomb right from the day the US Government announced the $15 billion and directed that all drugs for our clients be got directly from US drug companies. It was indeed a project that would come to an end.

I am bitter with the shortsightedness of our governments on the need to raise local revenue to meet the country’s demands!! Why should a whole country wait until she is squeezed into a corner to begin to plan for something that was obvious for the last 5 years?

Well, it is bad news that our patients are at risk as well as the public but it is good news that African States are beginning to have their eyes opened to know that donor funding is not sustainable. What is most important at this time is to generate a local fund to mitigate this problem. After sometime, I strongly believe that some of this donor money will be coming in just to argument what African governments will have started and funded themselves as opposed to the other way around.

I am appealing to Kenyans to cooperate and implement the new strategy to tell the world that Kenya as a country has potential to fund her programs internally.

Rev. Evatt Mugarura

Executive Director, AYLDH Initiative,

; googlegroups; chifugooglegroups; wananchi From: chifu2222@...Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 03:53:19 -0700Subject: KENYA: HIV funding begins at home

KENYA: HIV funding begins at homeNAIROBI, 31 March 2010 (PLUSNEWS) - Smarting from two consecutive Global Fund rejections and declining donor interest, the Kenyan government is considering ways to fund its own national treatment programme. Apart from the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria rejecting Kenya's proposals for HIV funding in rounds eight and nine, the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief has flat-lined its funding and the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative (CHAI) will be pulling out of funding paediatric ARVs in Kenya after the present fiscal period. "Up to 2011, we are assured of PEPFAR support and we have enough support from the Global Fund [Round 7] and the CHAI [but] we still have a US$1.67 billion gap, of which $959 million is needed for treatment and care [up to 2013]," said Regina Ombam, head of strategy at the National AIDS Control Council (NACC), at a roundtable on HIV funding hosted by media NGO, Internews. NACC has developed a raft of proposals for consideration by the Ministry of Finance which, if adopted, could go some way to offsetting the funding gap. "With a 25 percent increase in premiums, NHIF [National Hospital Insurance Fund] would fund at least a quarter of the total need of [first-line] ARVs and [outpatient) opportunistic infection treatment," said Ombam. "Since 58 percent of the financing gap in the Kenya National AIDS Strategic Plan is generated in the area of treatment and care, we feel that the first step of search for innovative financing should occur here." NACC has also proposed that the government enforce a 2 percent tax on mobile phone airtime, to raise $153 million over five years. Local press have reported that Safaricom, the country's largest mobile phone network, has expressed willingness to participate in such a programme. Kenya is part of UNITAID's air ticket funding scheme, whereby a small levy on airline tickets and cargo goes towards HIV programmes; NACC hopes to use funds raised from outbound flights to buy ARVs. Currently, the government spends only 6.9 percent of its total budget on health; NACC proposes that the Ministry of Finance live up to the Abuja Declaration of 2001, when African governments committed to spend at least 15 percent of the national budget on health. If Kenya made this commitment starting with the upcoming 2010-2011 budget, Ombam noted, it could raise as much as $500 million for HIV over the next five years. A paper will be prepared and presented to cabinet for approval and then for inclusion in the current budgeting process, due to end with the reading of the national budget on 30 June. wm/kr/mw[END]Attention donors! Chip in for IRIN/PlusNews - you know you want to: http://www.irinnews.org/donors.aspx

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[Guest guest]

Be it Global fund, PEPFAR or any other source of funding, it is all foreign support that can never be sustained!!!

This shortage of ARVs has been a timed bomb right from the day the US Government announced the $15 billion and directed that all drugs for our clients be got directly from US drug companies. It was indeed a project that would come to an end.

I am bitter with the shortsightedness of our governments on the need to raise local revenue to meet the country’s demands!! Why should a whole country wait until she is squeezed into a corner to begin to plan for something that was obvious for the last 5 years?

Well, it is bad news that our patients are at risk as well as the public but it is good news that African States are beginning to have their eyes opened to know that donor funding is not sustainable. What is most important at this time is to generate a local fund to mitigate this problem. After sometime, I strongly believe that some of this donor money will be coming in just to argument what African governments will have started and funded themselves as opposed to the other way around.

I am appealing to Kenyans to cooperate and implement the new strategy to tell the world that Kenya as a country has potential to fund her programs internally.

Rev. Evatt Mugarura

Executive Director, AYLDH Initiative,

; googlegroups; chifugooglegroups; wananchi From: chifu2222@...Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 03:53:19 -0700Subject: KENYA: HIV funding begins at home

KENYA: HIV funding begins at homeNAIROBI, 31 March 2010 (PLUSNEWS) - Smarting from two consecutive Global Fund rejections and declining donor interest, the Kenyan government is considering ways to fund its own national treatment programme. Apart from the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria rejecting Kenya's proposals for HIV funding in rounds eight and nine, the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief has flat-lined its funding and the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative (CHAI) will be pulling out of funding paediatric ARVs in Kenya after the present fiscal period. "Up to 2011, we are assured of PEPFAR support and we have enough support from the Global Fund [Round 7] and the CHAI [but] we still have a US$1.67 billion gap, of which $959 million is needed for treatment and care [up to 2013]," said Regina Ombam, head of strategy at the National AIDS Control Council (NACC), at a roundtable on HIV funding hosted by media NGO, Internews. NACC has developed a raft of proposals for consideration by the Ministry of Finance which, if adopted, could go some way to offsetting the funding gap. "With a 25 percent increase in premiums, NHIF [National Hospital Insurance Fund] would fund at least a quarter of the total need of [first-line] ARVs and [outpatient) opportunistic infection treatment," said Ombam. "Since 58 percent of the financing gap in the Kenya National AIDS Strategic Plan is generated in the area of treatment and care, we feel that the first step of search for innovative financing should occur here." NACC has also proposed that the government enforce a 2 percent tax on mobile phone airtime, to raise $153 million over five years. Local press have reported that Safaricom, the country's largest mobile phone network, has expressed willingness to participate in such a programme. Kenya is part of UNITAID's air ticket funding scheme, whereby a small levy on airline tickets and cargo goes towards HIV programmes; NACC hopes to use funds raised from outbound flights to buy ARVs. Currently, the government spends only 6.9 percent of its total budget on health; NACC proposes that the Ministry of Finance live up to the Abuja Declaration of 2001, when African governments committed to spend at least 15 percent of the national budget on health. If Kenya made this commitment starting with the upcoming 2010-2011 budget, Ombam noted, it could raise as much as $500 million for HIV over the next five years. A paper will be prepared and presented to cabinet for approval and then for inclusion in the current budgeting process, due to end with the reading of the national budget on 30 June. wm/kr/mw[END]Attention donors! Chip in for IRIN/PlusNews - you know you want to: http://www.irinnews.org/donors.aspx

Hotmail has tools for the New Busy. Search, chat and e-mail from your inbox. Learn More.