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Aids Healthcare Foundation calls for Global Fund leader to go

Governance | Niki May Young | 30 Nov 2011

The Aids Healthcare Foundation has renewed its call for the executive director of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria to step down after the Fund announced that it will halt new grants to developing countries because of budget restrictions.

The Global Fund is the world’s predominant fund to fight Aids, tuberculosis and malaria, raising $21.7bn since 2002. It receives significant funding from the UK and other governments internationally. In March this year Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, pledged additional funding for the charity after a ‘multilateral aid review’ found it to have an “excellent track record” for delivering results. And in May former director general of the UK’s Department for International Development, Martin Dingham, was appointed as the charity’s chair, before stepping down in August due to illness.

On 22 September AHF called for the Global Fund’s executive director, Michel Kazatchkine (pictured), to step down to ensure the Fund’s viability after reports of waste, fraud and corruption in the Fund's projects in Mali, Mauritania and Zimbabwe which led to Germany, Sweden and Denmark withholding their contributions to the Fund.

In a statement last week the Global Fund announced a new five-year strategy with a “focus on investing strategically in countries, populations and interventions with high potential for impact and strong value for money”, but advised that because of “substantial budget challenges in some donor countries, compounded by low interest rates”, the charity would only be able to finance essential services for ongoing programmes that are coming to conclusion before 2014. It also announced it would be appointing a new general manager and potential support team to work alongside Kazatchkine.

Michael Weinstein, president of AHF said that in order to restore confidence in the Fund, Kazatchkine must go: “Donor countries, voting with their wallets, have stated their lack of confidence in the current Global Fund leadership. The fact that the Global Fund board feels the need to bring on additional management confirms that current leadership is not up to the task.

“In order for the Fund to fulfill its desperately-needed mission of funding medical care for the world’s poor, the Fund must regain that confidence by bringing in new leadership. Once again, we call on the board’s executive director, Michel Kazatchkine, to openly step down so that confidence can be restored, and needed reforms may begin in earnest.

"Kazatchkine must also stop negotiating with the board to obtain an extension or a different role in the organisation as it is extremely important that an organisation like the Global Fund retains an executive director who is the sole head of the Fund.”

A spokesman for the Global Fund told civilsociety.co.uk it had "no comment to make" on the call for Kazatchkine to stand down.

Meanwhile the Fund has called for donors and governments to urgently consider measures to increase funding.

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