Align Global Fund With National Policy – Coordinator

The Coordinator of the HIV/AIDS Division in the Federal
Ministry of Health, Dr Evelyn Ngige, has called on stakeholders to align the
implementation of Global Funds programmes with national policies.

Ngige made the call in Enugu on Monday at a three-day
retreat to review the phase one support and performances of the Global Fund in
Nigeria.

She said that aligning the programmes with national
guidelines would ensure the sustainability of the programmes at the cessation
of external support.

“We want a situation where Global Funds implementation fits
into what obtains from the national guidelines.

“We cannot be forced to do what we cannot do because the aim
of some of these supports is for them to help us to own these programmes and
for these programmes to be sustainable so that when these supports go, we will
still be able to carry on.

“But if there is a situation where because there is a lot of
money, we start implementing very cost-intensive services, can we support this
when these external funds depart?

“In the course of this retreat, I know that it will be an
opportunity to look into this so that we do not spite ourselves indirectly, so
that we’ll work out ways of ensuring that whatever it is we have started will
be sustained and that the country will be able to cope when some of these
supports depart.’’

On his part, the Director of Policy and Strategy at the
National Agency for the Control of AIDS, Mr. Alex Ogundipe, attributed the low
performance of the Global Fund in combating HIV and AIDS to the delay in
disbursements by development partners and security challenges.

He proposed that the phase two of the programme, which would
begin next year, should concentrate on states where prevalence rate of the
infection was high and other states that were willing to contribute to the
implementation.

“We are proposing, subject to the approval of the Global
Fund, a high implementation plan. We are already operating in 802 facilities in
the country, but we are proposing to add 300 new facilities in phase two to
spread across Nigeria.

“In the phase one, we fared up to 60 per cent or 70 per
cent, but we are targeting more in the phase two to meet up with the target,’’
Ogundipe said.