Kaiser Family Foundation and UNAIDS Issue Report on Funding for AIDS by G8 Countries and Other Major

Geneva/Washington, 13 July 2009 – The Kaiser Family Foundation and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) have issued a new report on 2008 funding for global AIDS efforts from the Group of Eight nations, the European Commission and other donor governments.

The latest annual report shows that overall commitments in AIDS funding from the developed world totalled US$ 8.7 billion in 2008, up from US$ 6.6 billion the previous year. Disbursements, which reflect actual resources made available in a given year and therefore provide a better measure of resource availability, rose even more rapidly, up 56 % to reach US$ 7.7 billion in 2008.

Disbursements from the United States totalled US$ 4 billion in 2008, more than half of all disbursements and more than any other single country. The United Kingdom was the second largest donor, followed by the Netherlands, France, Germany, Norway and Sweden.

Financing a sufficient and sustained response to the AIDS epidemic in low- and middle-income countries has emerged as one of the world’s greatest health and development challenges. International assistance from donor governments, through bilateral aid and contributions to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, as well as other financing channels, is a critical part of the response. Importantly, while the report provides the latest data available on donor funding, it reflects budgets largely set in place before the acceleration of the current global economic crisis, which may create new challenges to future funding.

– Between 2002 and 2008, commitments and disbursements from developed nations each increased by more than five-fold.
– In 2008, donor governments disbursed US$ 5.7 billion bilaterally and earmarked funds for HIV through multilateral organizations, as well as an additional US$ 1.7 billion to combat HIV through the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and US$ 265 million to UNITAID.
– When HIV disbursements are measured as a share of each nation’s gross domestic product, the Netherlands ranks first, followed by the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the United States.

The full report is available online from the Kaiser Family Foundation Web site at http://www.kff.org/hivaids/7347.cfm or from the UNAIDS Web site www.unaids.org.

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