Africa news round up: Global Fund holds back money for HIV and malaria treatment, Ugandan health system criticised and 'no cuts' in aid to Africa

Uganda has lost 25bn Ugandan shillings ($12m) of Global Fund money due to concerns over poor accountability, according to reports this week.

The Global Fund has refused to release a second $10m instalment from the $36m pot it allocated for HIV/Aids activities in Uganda in 2003 because it was not satisfied with how initial payments have been spent, reported New Vision.

A further $2m is yet to be disbursed from the $24m allocated for malaria work under the Global Fund in 2004.

In 2005 Uganda was suspended from the Global Fund over irregularities in the administration of funds. This year, the Ugandan government began proceedings to prosecute those accused of embezzling Global Fund money, including two former health ministers.

Aidspan, the independent watchdog that monitors Global Fund activities worldwide, said Uganda failed to satisfy the fund that the arrangements put in place after its suspension were robust enough to protect its money from misuse.

In an interview with New Vision, an Aidspan representative said the $12m grants were now so far behind schedule that they "become irredeemable".

The news comes in the same week that the Uganda Aids Commission said Uganda requires an estimated 1.3tr Ugandan shillings ($700m) over the next 18 months to finance vital HIV/Aids activities.

The commission said that 25% of this sum should go towards prevention and 50% towards treatment, care and delivery of drugs and services.

This week has also seen groups representing people living with HIV and Aids reject Uganda's new draft HIV/Aids prevention and control bill 2008.

The draft bill criminalises the intentional transmission of HIV. The National Forum of People Living with HIV/Aids Networks in Uganda said that the country should avoid creating scenarios where people living with HIV/Aids are looked on as criminals.

Health system criticised

Uganda's decentralised health system is to blame for the poor delivery of health services across the country, according to health minister Stephen Mallinga.

Speaking at the 14th health sector joint review meeting in Kampala on Monday, Mallinga said the decentralised recruitment of health workers had led to a culture of "tribalism", with many health workers recruited and remaining within their own home regions, reported the Daily Monitor.

This has led to an uneven distribution of qualified health workers across the country, particularly in regions with few of its own qualified medical staff.

Mallinga added that decentralisation was also thwarting health workers' chances of being promoted and transferred to other regions.

"Once you are recruited to Kisoro you are likely to be tied up there forever without getting an opportunity to upgrade and be promoted," he said.

At the same meeting the Belgium ambassador to Uganda, Jan de Bruyne, warned that Uganda is off-track to meet the Millennium Development Goals on reducing child and maternal mortality as a consequence of its "poor healthcare system".

Economic troubles continue

Uganda's economic woes continued this week with an estimated 114bn Ugandan shillings ($54m) wiped off the local stock market in one day.

The losses recorded on October 27 were the result of panic selling by stockbrokers in the Uganda Securities Exchange, reported the Daily Monitor. Of the losses, Shs 23.6bn evaporated from six locally listed companies, including Uganda Clays, New Vision and the Bank of Baroda.

Despite assurances from the Bank of Uganda and the government that the economy would weather the global financial downturn with minimal effect, confidence among local investors is falling.

Last week the shilling collapsed against the dollar, falling to a low of Shs 2,200. As a result fuel prices have spiked, with a litre of petrol rising by nearly Shs 300.

With Uganda's heavy dependency on foreign imports, prices of other goods are expected to start rising soon.

The governor of the Bank of Uganda, Emmanuel Tumusiime Mutebile, attributed the scarcity of dollars to a fall in remittances from Ugandans working abroad who have lost their jobs or had their work hours cut.

No cut in aid to Africa

The global financial downturn will not see donors slash aid to Africa, according to the World Bank.

Despite the widespread belief that western countries hit by a faltering global economy will renege on aid commitments, Shanta Devarajan, the World Bank's chief economist for the Africa region, says that reduction in foreign aid among donor countries is still a long way off.

Writing on his World Bank blog last week, africacan.worldbank.org, he said: "Two things need to happen for the crisis to lead to a significant reduction in foreign aid. First, the financial crisis has to lead to a major recession in donor countries. Second, the recession leads to such fiscal constraints that foreign aid is cut."

He argued that the world is not yet at this stage of economic decline and that aid is motivated largely by non-economic factors.

His comments followed an appeal from the chairman of the African Union, the Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete, to the west not to cut aid to Africa.

Concerns have been also raised by Uganda's Central Bank that Uganda will face deep cuts in development funding as donor countries pour millions into shoring up faltering financial institutions.

This week some of the world's largest NGOs confirmed they were revising budgets, cutting staff and reviewing their 2009 programmes of funding and activity.

Robert Zachritz, World Vision's director of advocacy and government relations, told IRIN news he believed micro-credit programmes could be particularly hit.

"Much of this [micro-finance credit] relies on getting loans from banks, which is going to be a real challenge in the near future. Losing this credit is a huge problem for the world's poor, small-scale farmers."

Carbon finance for African farmers

Environmental experts are examining ways in which the billions of dollars available under the Kyoto Protocol could be used to help improve the lives of farmers across Africa.

Earlier this week, more than 100 experts from five continents met in the US to discuss ways in which carbon finance could be used to help fund agricultural development in some of the world's poorest countries.

Carbon finance has been developed under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), whereby industrialised nations can fulfil their commitments to reducing their carbon footprint by investing in emission-saving projects overseas.

To qualify for funding, agricultural projects in Africa would have to be able to scientifically prove how much they can reduce greenhouse gas emissions compared with traditional farming methods.

Issues debated at the meeting included the potential for new sustainable production intensification (SPI) technology that would reduce tilling of land, which releases CO2 trapped in the soil into the atmosphere.

According to news agency IRIN, systems under discussion include Conservation Agriculture, a method where seeds are drilled directly into the ground.

"This is a win-win-win opportunity," said Theodor Friedrich, an expert in SPI. "We have a chance to slow climate change, help poor farmers make a better living and improve soil health and productivity all at the same time."

He pointed out that developing non-tillage methods of farming would directly benefit small-hold farmers in Africa as soil that is rich in carbon is also more adaptable to the higher temperatures and increasingly erratic rainfall that are the expected outcomes of global climactic change.