July 10, 2002

by Nigel Marsh - Hope Communications

BARCELONA, WEDNESDAY World Vision will formally write to the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, to call for the needs of orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) to be clearly included in the GFATM's future plans, says Ken Casey, special representative of the WV International President for HIV/AIDS.

Following a presentation by GFATM Board chairman Richard Feachem today, Casey said he was once again struck by the fact that the needs of the vast numbers of new orphans being left behind by the AIDS pandemic are not being fully addressed in Barcelona.

The Global Fund is doing research now to quantify the total cost of addressing HIV/AIDS and how much of that should be borne by the Global Fund.

"According to what we have heard to day, it is far from clear that OVC is a component of that study," said Casey. "We are going to encourage them to make it a distinct and seperate line item in the figures. Following the publication of the latest Children On The Brink study today, and the horrifying statistics in that report, we must see the OVC issue specifically and deliberately targeted."

Casey stressed that World Vision remains positive toward the goals of the GFATM.

"We have no problem with the targets and approaches that the GFATM has adopted," said Casey. "We are rather more concerned about the things they have left out, and most particularly the fact that the new criteria revealed today for assessing future projects that they will fund do not include vulnerable children.

"Yet we know from our experience on the field that this is one of the most devastating consequences of HIV, and it is stretching communities to the very limits. When asked by our field staff, parents who are dying of AIDS consistently say that their number one worry is for the future of their orphaned children."

The GFATM was proposed in June 2000 and established in 2001 as a $7-$10bn independent fund that would support new national projects that could demonstrate they would impact the spread of the three killer diseases through government partnerships with NGOs and others. Although the Fund has not come close to reaching the financial targets set, it has quickly become a significant source of finance for social and medical interventions.