The Global Fund: Which Countries Owe How Much?
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THE GLOBAL FUND: WHICH COUNTRIES OWE HOW MUCH?

By Tim France, Gorik Ooms and Bernard Rivers (21 April 2002)

[Full permission is granted to freely reprint this article. Please
credit and inform the authors.]

Nearly one year ago, the majority of the world’s nations resolved at
‘UNGASS’, a major UN conference on AIDS, to increase annual expendi-
ture on the AIDS epidemic to $7-10 billion by 2005, with much of this
money to be raised and disbursed by a new global fund. When the fund
was eventually set up, its mandate was extended, and it was named the
Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

AIDS, an unprecedented and accelerating emergency, is already having
a devastating impact in Africa, with similar impacts unfolding on
other continents. Every day, 8,000 die, and 13,000 more become in-
fected. Experts agree that reasonable expenditures on prevention and
treatment of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria can be of dramatic bene-
fit not only to human health, but also to economic development.

Thus far, efforts have been made to raise the money needed by the
Global Fund through ad hoc voluntary donations. These efforts have
failed. Governments have pledged a mere $1.8 billion. Contributions
from the private sector have been even more disappointing, with not a
single meaningful pledge since the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
offered $100 million ten months ago.

It’s time for a new approach. The Global Fund needs to grow rapidly
to the point where it raises $10 billion a year. Contributions to the
Global Fund should be equitably shared among the countries whose
citizens live the most comfortable and unthreatened lives. This means
that the wealthiest countries, such as the US, should contribute con-
siderably more than they currently do. But it also means that contri-
butions should come from the likes of Australia, Singapore, and the
United Arab Emirates ­ relatively wealthy countries that have not yet
contributed a penny.

Part of the problem is that to date, nobody has proposed which coun-
tries should give how much. The following table therefore offers an
‘Equitable Contributions Framework’ that can be used as a starting
point for working out an appropriate contribution level for each
country, and for measuring how well each country is doing against
that level.

The Framework suggests that $1 billion a year should come from the
private sector, as a minimum to justify the label ‘public/private
partnership’ and the two seats it has out of the 18 voting seats on
the Fund board. The remaining $9 billion a year should come, in pro-
portion to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), from the 48 countries that
have a ‘high’ Human Development Index, or HDI. (The UN’s HDI measures
the overall quality of life based on standard of living, life expec-
tancy, and literacy plus school-enrolment.)

The proposed contribution comes to 0.035% of GDP for each country.
Not one country has yet given at this level. Assuming, in the absence
of better data, that every contribution made thus far is entirely for
use this year, the Netherlands (contributing at 97% of its proposed
level), Sweden (73%) and Italy (57%) have done reasonably well. Sev-
enteen countries have given between 1% and 50% of the proposed level,
with Japan and the US at a very disappointing 12% and 13%, respec-
tively. And 28 ‘high development’ countries have given nothing at
all. Further details are provided at
http://www.hdnet.org
and
http://www.aidspan.org

It is to the credit of countries like Uganda and Nigeria that, poor
as they are on a per capita basis, they have made multi-million-
dollar contributions to the Fund. And it is to the shame of many of
the 48 relatively wealthy countries that they have contributed little
or nothing, without even stating why.

The Global Fund represents a bold new approach. The Fund’s leaders
say that it will be more fast-moving, participatory, transparent and
accountable than traditional channels. The Fund needs a chance to
prove itself. It would be a shame if it were to fail simply because
it did not receive the funding it needs to get properly established
and to respond to the most urgent and obvious needs.

The authors are:

Dr. Tim France
Health & Development Networks
Thailand
Tel: +66-9-950-0685
mailto:[email protected]
http://www.hdnet.org

Gorik Ooms
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Luxembourg
Mozambique
Tel: +258-82-311-075
mailto:[email protected]
http://www.msf.lu

Bernard Rivers
Aidspan
USA (New York)
Tel: +1-212-662-6800
mailto:[email protected]
http://www.aidspan.org

================================

Table: Equitable Contributions Framework for the Global Fund, based
on GDP (21 April 2002)

a) G7 “high Human Development Index” countries:

I | Suggested | Total pledge | Estimated |
I | “equitable | to GF thus far| portion of |
I | annual | ($m., and | total pledge |
I |contribution”| as % of Col 2)| that applies |
I | (US$m) | | to 2002 |
I-­­­­­­­­­­­­­­-|--­-­­­­­­­-­| ­­­­­- | ­­­­-| -­­­ |­­­­­- |
I United States: | 3,479 | 450 | (13%)| 250 | (7%) |
I Japan: | 1,646 | 200 | (12%)| 68 | (4%) |
I Germany: | 658 | 158 | (24%)| 35 | (5%) |
I United Kingdom:| 498 | 219 | (44%)| 67 | (13%) |
I France: | 453 | 151 | (33%)| 51 | (11%) |
I Italy: | 376 | 215 | (57%)| 73 | (19%) |
I Canada: | 243 | 100 | (41%)| 38 | (15%) |
I-­­­­­­­­­­­­­­-|--­-­­­­­­­-­| ­­­­­- | ­­­­-| -­­­ |­­­­­- |
I G7 total: | 7,352 | 1,493 | (20%)| 580 | (8%) |

b) Non-G7 “high Human Development Index” countries:

I | Suggested | Total pledge | Estimated |
I | “equitable | to GF thus far| portion of |
I | annual | ($m., and | total pledge |
I |contribution”| as % of Col 2)| that applies |
I | (US$m) | | to 2002 |
I-­­­­­­­­­­­­­­-|--­-­­­­­­­-­| ­­­­­- | ­­­­-| -­­­ |­­­­­- |
I Spain: | 195 | 58 | (29%)| 19 | (10%) |
I Netherlands: | 128 | 125 | (97%)| 42 | (32%) |
I Switzerland: | 85 | 10 | (12%)| 3 | (4%) |
I Belgium: | 81 | 19 | (24%)| 6 | (8%) |
I Sweden: | 80 | 58 | (73%)| 20 | (25%) |
I Austria: | 67 | 4 | (5%)| 1 | (2%) |
I Denmark: | 57 | 2 | (4%)| 1 | (1%) |
I Finland: | 42 | 2 | (4%)| 1 | (1%) |
I Greece: | 39 | 2 | (4%)| 1 | (1%) |
I Portugal: | 37 | 1 | (4%)| 0 | (1%) |
I Ireland: | 33 | 10 | (31%)| 3 | (10%) |
I Kuwait: | 10 | 1 | (10%)| 0 | (3%) |
I Luxembourg: | 7 | 3 | (41%)| 1 | (14%) |
I Others****: | 1 to 161 | 0 | (0%) | 0 | (0%) |
I-­­­­­­­­­­­­­­-|---­-­­­­­­­­| ­­­­­- | ­­­­-| -­­­ |­­­­­- |
I Non-G7 total: | 1,648 | 294 | (18%)| 99 | (6%) |

c) Totals from the above table

(i) Total for all 48 high HDI countries:

* Suggested “equitable annual contribution” to Global Fund: US$9,000
million
* Total pledge to Global Fund thus far: US$1,788 million
* Estimated portion of total pledge that applies to 2002: US$679 mil-
lion

(ii) Total for all non-'high HDI' countries that have donated**:

* Suggested “equitable annual contribution” to Global Fund: $0
* Total pledge to Global Fund thus far: US$33 million
* Estimated portion of total pledge that applies to 2002: US$11 mil-
lion

(iii) Total for private sector (foundations and corporations) ***:

* Suggested “equitable annual contribution” to Global Fund: US$1,000
million
* Total pledge to Global Fund thus far: US$101 million
* Estimated portion of total pledge that applies to 2002: US$34 mil-
lion

(iv) Grand total

* Suggested “equitable annual contribution” to Global Fund: US$10,000
million
* Total pledge to Global Fund thus far: US$1,922 million
* Estimated portion of total pledge that applies to 2002: US$725 mil-
lion

Explanatory example:

The GDP in 2000 of all 48 countries totalled $25,569 billion. The GDP
of the US that year was $9,882 billion, or 38.7% of the total. Thus,
if the 48 countries shared equitably the donation of $9 billion annu-
ally to the Global Fund (with the remaining $1 billion coming from
the private sector), the US’s contribution would be the $3.479 bil-
lion that is shown in the table.

Sources:

(i) Pledges:
* www.globalfundatm.org/files/Financial_contributions.html
* www.un.org/News/ossg/aids.htm
* and private sources. (Pledges are as of 18 April 2002)

(ii) HDI:
* www.undp.org/hdr2001

(iii) GDP:
* www.worldbank.org/data/databytopic/GDP.pdf

Additional data plus future updates available at http://www.hdnet.org
and http://www.aidspan.org

The final column is based on private sources plus our own estimates,
because the information is not published. We understand that total
pledges are: 2002=$725m., 2003=$487m., 2004=$132m., 2005=$67m.,
2006=$27m., plus $484m. for which the year(s) are not specified. We
also understand that the pledges for 2002 (before adding shares of
the EU pledge, when appropriate) include USA=$250m., UK=$60m., Neth-
erlands=$40m., Canada=$37.5m., and Germany=$26.5m. For other coun-
tries and for the private sector, the 2002 portion is not known, so
we have assumed it to be 33.8% of the total pledge, in order to bring
the overall 2002 total to the known figure of $725 m. Further infor-
mation received will be reflected in future versions of this table.

Table references:

* The European Commission has pledged $106.9 million to the Global
Fund. In the table, this sum has been added to the direct pledges to
the Global Fund of the 15 EU countries, in proportion to their re-
spective GDPs. Denmark, Portugal, Finland and Greece have not made
any direct pledges, but, like the others, have been credited here
with portions of the EC pledge.

** Non ‘high HDI’ countries that have donated are Russia ($20m.), Ni-
geria ($10m.), Uganda ($2m.), Zimbabwe ($1m.), Andorra ($100,000),
Niger ($50,000), Liberia ($25,000), Kenya ($8,273).

*** Of the $101.15 m. pledged by the private sector as of 18 April
2002, $100 m. was from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

**** Argentina, Australia, Bahamas, Bahrain, Barbados, Brunei, Chile,
Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hong Kong, Hun-
gary, Iceland, Israel, Lithuania, Malta, New Zealand, Norway, Poland,
Qatar, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, United Arab Emir-
ates, Uruguay.

========================================

Accompanying note to readers and editors

The above article was written by three people who work with non-
governmental organizations (NGOs) in three different continents. They
‘met’ electronically through their active involvement in the Break-
the-Silence (BTS) dedicated e-mail discussion forum, which has over
3,000 members worldwide. BTS serves to support civil society partici-
pation in international debates on HIV/AIDS and other health-related
issues. Since October 2001, BTS discussions have mainly focused on
the Global Fund.

Financial contributions to the Fund have decreased significantly in
recent months, and are far below the originally intended level. The
first funding requests for grants from the Fund, in March 2002, were
already for far more money than the Fund can currently provide in any
sustained way. These problems have led to considerable frustration
among BTS members, and among governments and NGOs that seek Global
Fund support.

The article, written in response to that frustration, proposes the
establishment of an ‘Equitable Contributions Framework’ to serve as a
guide to appropriate contribution levels to the Fund.

If you or your organization are encouraging contributions to the Fund
from your own country, you can use the Framework to highlight your
country’s appropriate contribution, its total pledges already made,
its apparent pledge for 2002, and the consequent shortfall. You can
then use these figures as a basis for lobbying and other activities
to increase the support for the Fund by your government and by corpo-
rations and foundations within your country. Feel free to forward the
article to others, or to post it at your web site.

If you are a journalist, you might explore these points in the course
of your coverage of the Global Fund, starting with the Fund’s board
meeting in New York (22-24 April 2002), at which the first grant dis-
bursements will be announced.

To join the BTS forum, send an e-mail message to:

To read previous BTS postings on the Global Fund process, go to:
http://archives.healthdev.net/bts

For the record, the web site of the Global Fund is:
http://www.globalfundatm.org

The article was distributed by Health & Development Networks (HDN)
(http://www.hdnet.org), an Irish non-profit organization that seeks
to mobilize a more effective response to HIV/AIDS and other health-
and-development issues by improving information, communication and
the quality of debate.

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