BY MBONO MDLULI
MBABANE – Global Fund has contributed an amount of E6 billion ever since it started giving out grants to Eswatini.
The money has been spent on fighting diseases such as HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB), and Malaria. Eswatini started receiving grants from Global Fund from 2003 through the Country Coordinating Mechanism of Eswatini (CCM Eswatini).
This transpired today (Wednesday, August 7, 2024) at Hilton Garden Inn, Mbabane when CCM Eswatini convened a media briefing to sensitise media practitioners, and ultimately the public, about what is being done by CCM to enable Eswatini to have access to Global Fund.
CCM Eswatini Executive Secretary Dr Advocate Dlamini stated that it was their wish to work with all groups of people in the country to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS, TB, and Malaria. He said their fear was that leaving out any group of people would allow the diseases to spread even further and make it hard to eradicate them.
Dr Dlamini mentioned that the groups of people they worked with included politicians, academics, professional workers, trade unions, sex workers, and other groups. He said they wanted every person to be represented so that they could know how to help that person not to be infected by these diseases.
As it has been reported before, Global Fund has agreed to give a grant of US$45 359 536 (about E831 361 369.29) to be used by the country in fighting against the diseases for the next three years (2024 to 2027). The money will be received by organisations such as the National Emergency Response Council on HIV/AIDS (NERCHA) and the Coordinating Assembly of Non-Governmental Organisations (CANGO), among others.
These organisations will then have a responsibility of making sure that the money is used for its intended purpose. Dr Dlamini said CCM Eswatini was the one that worked hard to ensure that the country had access to Global Fund. He said the CCM existed in many countries because Heads of State saw that it was necessary for each country to coordinate its own efforts to access Global Fund. He said Global Fund was established so that the three diseases could at least be alleviated around the world, so that it could be easy for people to move and improve trade relations among the nations of the world, without having to fear contracting these diseases.
Global Fund, according to Wikipedia, is an international financing and partnership organisation that aims to attract, leverage and invest additional resources to end the epidemics of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria to support attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established by the United Nations. This multi-stakeholder international organisations maintains its secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland. The organisation began operations in January 2002. Microsoft founder Bill Gates (through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) was one of the first donors to provide seed money for the partnership.
