HIV funds in Namibia drying up

Dwindling donor support for Namibia’s HIV/Aids programme has sent waves of panic in government circles, as it scrambles for last minutes resorts to remedy the situation.

The Global Fund to fight Aids, TB and malaria, Namibia’s chief financial backer on such programmes has been backtracking on funding for the South-Western Africa nation since 2008.

The Global Fund had announced in December last year that it will not finance any Aids treatment and prevention programmes until 2013, and has cancelled the ‘Round 11’ of grants allocated for programmes in a number of countries. This is because western donor countries have reneged on their pledges to finance Aids related programmes.

In Namibia, Global Fund monies forms the backbone of a number of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and civil society organisations (CSO), which relies heavily on its financial assistance to advance their HIV/Aids mitigation programmes. About fifty per cent of Namibia’s HIV-Aids response programmes come from international donor organisations.

According to the National Health Accounts of the Ministry of Health published in December 2010, 51 per cent of the total health expenditure for HIV-Aids was financed by donors in 2008/09, while the public sector contributed about 45,5 per cent. Total expenditure on HIV-Aids health related services was N$1,4 billion in 2009. In total, health and non-health spending related to HIV-AIDS was N$1,7 billion in 2009 of which 49,9 per cent was from government and 47.5 per cent from donors.

Pregnant women

In a last ditch effort to prevent a health crisis, government has engaged local NGO’s with international roots as a means to an end. As part of such initiative, government entered into an agreement with the GIZ [German Association for International Cooperation]. Under the agreement, the German partner will contribute towards internal and external mainstreaming of HIV/Aids in the public and private sectors.

Speaking during the signing agreement, the counsellor for development cooperation at the German embassy in Namibia, Romeo Bertolini, said Namibia deserves more autonomy in its fight against HIV/Aids.

“Despite the current challenges the Global Fund faces, I am convinced that the major contributors, Germany included, will acknowledge successful and innovative approaches in the partner countries,” said Bertolini, adding that the Namibian partners should not “give up” on the Global Fund.

“Rather use the GF’s ‘creative destruction’ and new orientation to facilitate your transition; the transition of a country that fights the epidemic by relying on external sources to one that is largely independent from foreign support and, in particular, leverages the potentials of the private sector,” said Bertolini, adding, “We are ready to join forces with you in that respect.”

Germany is contributing about 200 million Euros to the Global Fund’s AIDS programmes annually.
Namibia is among the world’s worst-affected country in terms of HIV/AIDS, with a 2002 rate of 23.3% among pregnant women, while the country overall prevalence rate stood at 13.1 per cent as per the latest 2009 estimate. The same year, 180 000 people were estimated to be living with HIV in Namibia – a staggering figure for a country with a population of just over 2 million people.

The epidemic in Namibia is said driven by a number of factors, including a history of dispossession, the diversity of its populations and cultures, internal migration and mobility. This has resulted in wide variation between the various regions and an epidemic which is at various stages (emerging, levelling off or rapidly expanding) in different areas.