The Global Fund and Togo sign agreement for €20 million
16 July 2009
Global Fund Executive Director Visits Togo
Lomé (16 July 2009) - The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the Ministry of Health today signed a grant agreement worth € 20 million over two years for HIV and AIDS, the first part of a five-year national grant that will allow Togo to scale-up treatment and care for people living with HIV.
“I am delighted to be able to join Minister of Health Komlan Mally in signing Togo’s Round 8 HIV grant agreement with the Global Fund,” said Professor Michel Kazatchkine, Executive Director of the Global Fund, who travelled to Lomé to sign the agreement. “This agreement reflects Togo’s determination to continue its fight against the AIDS epidemic”, he said.
Togo is a country of 6 million people, of whom 130,000 are living with HIV/AIDS. Its rate of adult HIV prevalence is 3.3 percent. Although Togo had received funding from the Global Fund on two occasions in the past, subsequent requests for funding were not successful. As a result, the Global Fund put in place a continuation of services agreement to allow those under ARV treatment to continue receiving their medication.
During this period, the Global Fund helped mobilize other donors, including the European Commission and the German and French development agencies, to provide interim support. UNAIDS, UNDP and WHO also joined this effort. “After experiencing so many challenges, Togo’s success in Round 8 is a wonderful example of what can be achieved when a country and its local and international partners come together with a common goal,” said Kazatchkine. “We are all proud of the success of Togo’s HIV proposal and the fact that, in this funding round, Togo’s grant negotiations were among the first to be concluded.”
The entire grant is worth up to € 72 million over five years and will be implemented jointly by the Ministry of Health of Togo and Population Services International (PSI). A second component of the grant, to be signed with PSI before the end of this month, will focus reducing the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV among vulnerable populations. It includes behavior change communication campaigns, counseling and testing and the implementation of reproductive health care services.
The Global Fund is the major international financer of programs to fight AIDS, TB and malaria, with US$ 16 billion in firm pledges and commitments of US$ 10.3 billion for programs in 140 countries. So far, programs supported by the Global Fund have saved 4 million lives by providing AIDS treatment for 2.3 million people, TB treatment for 5.4 million people and distributing 88 million bed nets.