Partnership for progress
15 March 2004
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria and the International HIV/AIDS Alliance sign an agreement for work in Ukraine
The International HIV/AIDS Alliance (the Alliance) has been appointed temporary principal recipient to administer funds for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria’s (Global Fund) HIV/AIDS programme in Ukraine. The new agreement between the Global Fund and the Alliance was signed on 15 March 2004. The agreement is for just over US$15 million and will run for a term of 12 months.
The Alliance was asked to take on this role by the Global Fund Secretariat after it announced its decision to suspend the three existing principal recipients ‘due to serious reservations over management issues’. The Alliance hopes that after this temporary 12 month period, the original arrangement of a country-led partnership of principal recipients which responds to the direction of the Country Co-ordinating Mechanism (CCM) will be resumed.
In response to this decision the Executive Director of the Alliance, Dr Alvaro Bermejo, said ‘We understand that achieving the programme agreed by the CCM will be challenging but I am convinced that through effective collaboration with all major stakeholders and with grass root organisations at the forefront of the work, the Alliance can significantly improve the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS and make major in-roads into reducing the number of new infections in Ukraine.’
The four work areas covered by the agreement are, treatment, care and support of people living with HIV/AIDS, a general risk reduction campaign, targeted prevention programmes for high-risk populations, and monitoring and evaluation. The programme also aims to significantly expand the number of people receiving AIDS treatment from around 100 to 2100 within a year.
Key to achieving the goals of the agreement are successful partnerships with other essential stakeholders. The Ukrainian government has pledged its support to the implementation of ongoing programmes through partners who are currently engaged in the work and the Alliance will seek to work with others who could add further value to the work.
Andriy Klepikov, Director of the Alliance Ukraine, said, ‘There is now an urgent need to move ahead quickly in order to prevent interruptions to services on the ground. We are optimistic that, given the speed at which the Global Fund has responded to the situation in Ukraine, no programmes will experience a period without funds.’
