A Ugandan AIDS activist is a key member of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Milly Katana has been chosen to represent about one thousand non-governmental organizations from developing countries. Ms. Katana, of Uganda’s Health Rights Action Group, will bring the concerns of the NGOs to Global Fund officials.
The fund will soon announce how it will distribute 700 million dollars this year. But requests for money from various nations and organizations total more than one billion dollars.
Ms. Katana says she agrees with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s estimate that it will take at least ten billion dollars a year, from different sources, to fight AIDS. She says there have been many complaints from civil society about the fund’s bureaucratic problems. But she told English to Africa reporter Joe De Capua that efforts are underway to solve them and to distribute the money fairly.