Global Fund, Geneva, Switzerland, January 30, 2004

The Global Fund will ask a reliable organization to take over implementation of the programs for several months, to give Ukraine the opportunity to address concerns of slow implementation, management and governance issues. The decision was communicated to the chair of the Global Fund's in-country counterpart, the Country Coordinating Mechanism, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Dmytro Tabachnik, this week.

After being alerted to potential problems with implementation of its grants to Ukraine, the Global Fund secretariat has over the past three weeks undertaken a full review of the process leading from grant approval to today. It has sent a mission to Ukraine to address specific issues surrounding implementation bottlenecks and at the conclusion of this mission, the Global Fund decided that firm action was needed to ensure that ambitious targets for treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS in Ukraine are reached within the two-year grant period.

"The primary responsibility of the Global Fund is to achieve results and to turn back the HIV/AIDS pandemic," says Dr Richard Feachem, Executive Director of the Global Fund. "We have taken action with our colleagues in Ukraine in order to ensure that our money flows, that the epidemic does not spread further and those who need treatment will receive treatment. We will take action of this kind in the future on any occasion that it is necessary to ensure that the results are achieved in any of the programs we finance."

The Global Fund has approved three grants worth a total of $25 million over two years to Ukraine. Of this, roughly $7.5 million has been disbursed, but only $740,000 has been spent to date. Ukraine so far lags substantially behind its targets to prevent the spread of HIV and provide treatment to people living with the virus. Among the programs' targets is the expansion of the number of people receiving AIDS treatment from less than 60 to 4,000 within two years.

"We do not believe the programs can be successful if we stay with the current structure," says Dr Feachem. "Yet, we do not wish to stop Global Fund funds from flowing. The Ukraine needs the money and needs it now. The issue, therefore, is to secure operations in the short term to ensure that in the medium term we are able to get the program back on track."

In a related development, the Global Fund has stepped in to ensure the country's stock of AIDS medicines which was in danger of running out.

The Global Fund is a unique global public-private partnership dedicated to attracting and disbursing additional resources to prevent and treat AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. This partnership between governments, civil society, the private sector and affected communities represents a new approach to international health financing. The Fund works in close collaboration with other bilateral and multilateral organizations to supplement existing efforts dealing with the three diseases. The Global Fund has so far committed $2.1 billion to 225 programs in 121 countries.

The Global Fund has been established as an independent private foundation governed by an international Board. Apart from a high standard of technical quality, the Global Fund attaches no conditions to any of its grants. It is not an implementing agency. It relies on local ownership and planning to ensure that new resources are directed to programs on the frontline of this global effort, reaching those most in need.

Its performance-based approach to grant-making - where grants are only disbursed if progress has been measured and verified - is designed to ensure that funds are used efficiently and create real change for people and communities. All programs are monitored by independent organizations contracted by the Global Fund to ensure that its funding has real impact in the fight against the three pandemics.