Stakeholders Express Worry As UK Halves Health aid to Nigeria, Others
Stakeholders are worried that the United Kingdom (UK) has halved its pledge to fight diseases in Nigeria and other developing countries ahead of World AIDS Day (WAD) held on December 1.
Britain announced on Monday that it would contribute $1.19 billion over three years to combat Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV), tuberculosis and malaria across the world, about half the amount aid organisations had hoped for and more than a month after other Groups of 7 (G7) nations had pledged their support.
According to a report published in New York Times, yesterday, Britain has slashed foreign aid since 2020, thus jeopardising efforts to tackle infectious diseases, famine, climate change and girl education.
The country’s new pledge is to the Global Fund, which finances the majority of campaigns against HIV, malaria and tuberculosis. The three diseases, together, kill nearly three million people yearly, even as the COVID-19 pandemic has derailed decades of progress.
Britain’s Minister for Development, Andrew Mitchell, in a statement, stated: “The UK and others founded the Global Fund because we refused to accept the loss of millions of lives every year to preventable and treatable diseases.”
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Britain was the second largest donor to the Fund. But since 2020, the country has cut its contribution to human rights work by 80 per cent, funds for some global health programmes by more than 80 per cent and humanitarian aid to Yemen, Syria and other nations by 60 per cent.
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Executive Director, of Global Fund, Peter Sands, said the organisation has saved 50 million lives since its launch in 2001.
He noted that with $18 billion from donor countries, it could save another 20 million lives over the next three years.
G7 member nations gathered in New York in September and pledged a combined $14.25 billion, but Britain and Italy were notably absent. Britain’s deepening economic crisis had some experts worried that the country would contribute little or nothing to the Fund.
Sands said: “Given the very challenging context, we are enormously appreciative of this strong pledge.”
Still, the amount is far short of the $2.15 billion requested from Britain and even less than the $1.68 billion contributed in the 2019 funding round.
Executive Director of StopAids, a health and human rights advocacy group based in Britain, Mike Podmore, said the requested amount is about .06 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product.
“Without returning the aid budget to its former size, the UK will not be able to effectively respond to the global crises we are facing today. The global reputation of the UK as a leader in international development and global health is also at stake,” he said.
