Fight Against HIV/AIDS Hindered by Duplicated Efforts, XV International AIDS Conference Participants Say
The duplication of efforts by donors in the fight against AIDS is leading to waste and inefficiency and slowing the fight against the disease, a panel of experts at the XV International AIDS Conference said on Monday, the New York Times reports. In a session titled "Funding the Response to HIV/AIDS: Why Are Donors Not Working Together?" moderator Hank McKinnell, CEO of Pfizer, said that the donor community is "pledging, moving and disbursing funds and materials at unprecedented rates." However, an overall "lack of agreement on approaches and key issues among the donors themselves has ... led to delays or problems in program implementation and coordination," Dr. Biziwick Mwale, executive director of the National AIDS Commission in Malawi, said. The participants agreed that standardized measures to monitor the costs and effectiveness of prevention efforts as well as the adoption of U.N. recommendations on using resources efficiently are needed to improve coordination among donors and developing countries. However, participants offered no formal proposals, saying that it would "take more time to resolve the complexities involved in the relationships between donors and recipient countries," according to the Times (Altman, New York Times, 7/13).
A kaisernetwork.org webcast of the session is available online.