Burma urges UN aid fund to stay

Last Updated: Tuesday, 23 August 2005, 08:47 GMT 09:47 UK


Burma urges UN aid fund to stay

Some 600,000 people in Burma are thought to have HIV or Aids
Burma has asked a UN-led group to reconsider its decision to stop
funding health projects in the country.
The Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria said last week
that it would withdraw funding because of obstructions to its
activities.

A spokeswoman for the organisation said on Friday that aid workers were
unable to carry out their work properly.

But in a statement, Burmese officials rejected the claims and said the
withdrawal would affect those in need.

Burma's Country Co-ordinating Mechanism, which is chaired by the health
minister, said that it "strongly deplores the negative impact" the move
will have.

In a statement published in the New Light of Myanmar newspaper on
Tuesday, it said the restrictions on aid workers were only temporary,
and "do not justify irreversible termination of grants".

"The Global Fund's response is clearly disproportionate," it is quoted
as saying by the Associated Press.

Last year the Global Fund agreed to spend $100m over five years
combating disease in Burma.

Regrettable decision

This is the first time the Geneva-based Global Fund has withdrawn from
a country in which it is operating.

It said its decision was regrettable, given the serious epidemics
threatening the impoverished Burmese population.

According to UNAids, an estimated 600,000 people in Burma have HIV or
Aids, and the country is thought to have one of the highest rates of
tuberculosis in the world.

But spokeswoman Rosie Vanek told the Associated Press on Friday that it
was the organisation's "basic principle" to ensure that the money it
was given was well spent, and that travel restrictions on aid workers
in Burma made it difficult to carry out its work properly.

"The Global Fund has now concluded that the grants cannot be
implemented in a way that ensures effective programme implementation,"
she said.

All the group's activities in Burma are set to cease by 1 December.

The Global Fund - an independent organisation of governments and
private groups set up by the UN - works in more than 100 countries,
trying to combat deaths from Aids, tuberculosis and malaria.

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