Set up national AIDS fund now
Dwindling donor support for HIV and AIDS has warranted an urgent call for the setting up of the National AIDS Fund, to mobilise resources domestically to finance HIV and AIDS awareness activities.
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A national policy dialogue to brainstorm counterpart health financing for HIV/TB, held in Accra last Wednesday, made a strong case for a national response for Ghana to mobilize its own internal resources to fund HIV and AIDS activities.
It was attended by stakeholders in the health sector.
National policy dialogue
Dubbed: “CSOs engagement with government on counterpart financing for HIV/TB”, the meeting established that for Ghana to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) target of eliminating HIV and AIDS by 2030, more needed to be done in terms of finance by the country to meet the global target.
It was against that backdrop that the Civil Society Organisation (CSO) Forum convened the national policy dialogue, to wage a strong campaign for the government to begin to mobilise internal resources to fund HIV and AIDS-related activities.
Setting the tone for the dialogue the President of the Ghana HIV/AIDS Network, Mr Victor Atta Ntumi, said the forum was to help in the national response to government’s counterpart funding to health challenges in the country.
Mr Ntumi who is also the Chairman of the CSO Forum, a body established to mobilise stakeholders to canvass support for internal resource mobilisation for HIV/AIDS, said generating additional resources for health financing in the country was critical to meeting the SDGs.
A Deputy Minister of Health, Ms Tina Mensah, spoke about making meaningful contributions into the health fund and expressed the government’s willingness to make the fund a priority to meet the SDGs 2030 target.
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“Government is determined to intensify efforts with more civil society engagements to mobilise domestic resources for the fund,” she said.
Ms Mensah underscored the need for awareness creation towards supporting the fund and expressed the conviction that Ghana would not miss out on the 2030 target.
Diminishing financial support
The Executive Director of Hope for Future Generations, a local non-governmental organisation, Madam Cecilia Lodonu Senoo, made a graphical presentation of the financial state of affairs at the Ghana Aids Commission (GAC) in terms of financial support.
She stated that donor support to the GAC reduced from $31.6 million to $9.8 million between 2014 and 2016, adding that in 2016-2017, no support was given to the commission.
According to Madam Lodonu-Senoo, the country needed $22.3 billion to meet the 2020 target of ensuring that HIV and AIDS victims did not lack any medical necessity and $26.2 billion to meet the 2030 target of eliminating HIV and AIDS.
National health dialogue
A former Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Professor Agyemang Badu Akosa, described the current state of Ghana’s health system as distressful and called for urgent steps to address it.
He called for a national health dialogue to help correct the wrongs in the health sector.
The Chairman of Country Coordinating Mechanism of the Global Fund, Mr Collins Agyarko-Nti, told the Daily Graphic that the organisation was currently negotiating for a grant of $194 million to fight HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
He added that the government was required to provide a counter fund of 15 per cent of that amount to be committed to the purchase of critical health products for those suffering from the three diseases.
Writer’s email: sebastian.syme@graphic.
com.gh