  
World Bank: Momentum seen for anti-AIDS war chest
Last Updated: 2001-04-30 17:09:07 EDT (Reuters Health)
By Anna Willard
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Momentum is building for the world's wealthy nations to kick in money toward a war chest to fight AIDS and other infectious disease in the poorest countries, a senior World Bank official said on Monday.
Chris Lovelace, the World Bank's director of health, nutrition and population, told Reuters that there are still significant questions about how much money each country might be expected to contribute or how quickly the initiative might move forward.
Lovelace indicated that a call for a global health facility aimed at fighting infectious disease likely would be included in a communique issued by the World Bank's development committee at the conclusion of its spring meeting on Monday.
"We need new money," Lovelace said. "But the amounts will be ultimately determined by donors." These amounts will need to be "significant," he added.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan began speaking last year about the need for rounding up as much as $7 billion to $10 billion in a global super fund to fight AIDS and other diseases, an idea that won qualified endorsement from the former Clinton administration.
The Bush administration has carefully hedged its support, saying it wants to be sure any such effort was well targeted to be of the most use under the difficult conditions in poor countries where the diseases are most prevalent.
A senior US Treasury official said over the weekend that a global fund should not be undertaken "to salve the consciences of those who are well-intentioned" but only if it seemed likely to make a real difference.
The timing is awkward for the Bush administration, which is trying to hold the line on government spending while pushing for a huge tax-cut program that it is promoting as a way to boost a flagging domestic economy.
It might be difficult for the United States--always seen as the largest potential donor since it is wealthiest among the wealthy--to free up significant sums for a new global fund, even one with such a laudable objective as fighting disease.
But it could be pressed into it by the enthusiasm of others if the idea takes wing, as Britain's Finance Minister Gordon Brown said was likely on Monday. Brown is also chairman of the policymaking committee of the International Monetary Fund.
Speaking to reporters, Brown said the fund was "an exciting development of huge potential which I believe will dominate the international agenda on social issues for the next year."
He said Britain and Italy have been working behind the scenes since February to promote the new global health fund.
"I want us to treat this issue with the same urgency that we treat the debt issue," Brown said, noting that "we cannot stand by and allow lives to be lost when there are potentially drugs and vaccines that can stop this needless loss of life."
A representative from the non-governmental organization Christian Aid, which works in poorer countries, said rich nations should look beyond a new fund and boost the proportion of their national wealth that is used for foreign aid.
"HIV/AIDS is a disease of poverty and the battle against it has to be part of the wider war on poverty," said Andrew Pendleton, Christian Aid's representative at the spring meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
"It's not enough to throw money at this now. That would be tackling the symptoms and not the cause," he said, adding that the wealthy nations devote too little from their annual incomes to aid.
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