Pitching
for
Malaria Funds,
Chambers
Admits Kiosk
Skepticism,
Cites Sri
Lanka
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December 17 --
Back in
September,
UNAIDS
executive
director
Michel
Sidibe
told Inner
City Press of
"reforms" of
the
Global
Funds on Aids,
Malaria and
Tuberculosis,
so it will
have
"credibility
again."
On
Monday, UN
malaria envoy
Ray Chambers
held a press
conference,
along
with Dr.
Fatoumata
Nafo-Traore of
the Roll Back
Malaria
Partnership
by video from
Geneva, to
pitch for a
re-capitalization
of the Global
Fund.
Inner
City Press
asked Chambers
about
criticism by
of the Global
Fund by
Richard Tren,
director of
Africa
Fighting
Malaria, in
particular of
the so-called
Affordable
Medicines
Facility for
malaria, a
$460
million
program that
he says has no
controls on
who gets the
medicines.
Chambers
praised
Tren, and said
he initially
shared the
skepticism,
that
"kiosk owners"
wouldn't pass
the subsidies
along to their
customers. But
he said there
are studies
that this is
not happened.
Inner
City Press
after thanking
him and Dr.
Nafo-Traore,
on behalf of
the
Free
UN Coalition
for Access,
for the
briefing went
on to ask
specifically
about the
Nigeria and
the Democratic
Republic of
Congo.
Dr.
Nafo-Traore
said the two
countries
represent 40%
of malaria
cases.
Chambers said
there is a map
of the DRC,
"state by
state," how
the funds
would be used.
And in North
Kivu?
Inner
City Press
moments later
asked UN
spokesman
Martin Nesirky
three
questions
about North
Kivu, none of
which got
answered. The
UN
Department of
Peacekeeping
Operations
with a $1.6
billion
MONUSCO
mission has no
answers -- video here -- but the Global Fund
does?
Chambers, it
must
be said, has
shown
determination.
Chambers
twice
used the
example of Sri
Lanka, saying
that malaria
was almost
wiped out and
then got
forgotten for
other
priorities. As
the UN has
belatedly had
to
acknowledge,
some 40,000
civilians were
killed in
Northern Sri
Lanka in 2009.
In
this same Dag
Hammarskjold
Library
Auditorium,
General
Shavendra
Silva of the
Sri Lankan
Army, depicted
in the UN's
report as
engaged
in war crimes,
was allowed
to screen a
war crimes
denial film
sponsored by
UNCA. And
so, FUNCA
is born. Watch
this site.
, 
