Select Committee on International Development Minutes of Evidence


Supplementary memorandum submitted by UNAIDS

LEVEL AND FLOW OF INTERNATIONAL RESOURCES FOR THE RESPONSE TO HIV/AIDS: 1998 UPDATE

INTRODUCTION

  During its sixth meeting in May 1998, the UNAIDS Programme Co-ordinating Board recommended that the UNAIDS Secretariat continue to monitor national and international resource flows to HIV/AIDS on a long-term basis. The Secretariat was advised to build on its experience with the UNAIDS Secretariat/Havard School of Public Health study on 1996-1997 HIV/AIDS financing to establish sustainable monitoring processes.

  Following this recommendation, in mid-1999, the UNAIDS Secretariat joined an ongoing collaboration between UNFPA and the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI) to collect information on the official development assistance disbursed to HIV/AIDS by donor countries. In the aftermath of the International Conference on Population and Development. UNFPA and NIDI have been collecting on a yearly basis data on the national and international resource flows to population activities including HIV/AIDS. UNAIDS collaborated in the 1998 data collection. During this process, the UNAIDS Secretariat has collaborated closely with UNFPA, NIDI and the donor country members of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) to improve existing HIV/AIDS data collection methodologies.

  In addition to these efforts to collect information on donor country allocations to HIV/AIDS, the UNAIDS Secretariat is also collecting information on UNAIDS Cosponsor HIV/AIDS allocations as well as country-level resource flows. Data on the Cosponsor HIV/AIDS expenditure were collected during the preparations for the Unified Budget and Workplan, 2000-2001 (see the Unified Budget and Workplan, 2000-2001, Addendum 1). Efforts to further improve the quality of these data will be part of the joint United Nations planning and programming process. Finally, the Secretariat has made substantial progress in the development of a country batabase on the national responses to the epidemic including data on country-level resource flows to HIV/AIDS.

  This paper presents the 1998 HIV/AIDS official development assistance collected from 14 of the 22 DAC member countries. Almost 80 per cent of the official development assistance disbursed by DAC member countries in 1998 came from these 14 countries - Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. All available data suggest that they also provide at least 80 per cent of the official development assistance disbursed for HIV/AIDS activities in 1998.[6]


LEVEL OF 1998 OFFICIAL DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE TO HIV/AIDS

  Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States reported having disbursed almost US$300 million for HIV/AIDS activities in developing countries and countries in transition in 1998 (Table 1).

[For intervening paragraphs see paragraphs 5.4.7-5.4.8 of original memorandum submitted by UNAIDS (Evidence pp 224-5)]

ISSUES AND NEXT STEPS IN THE MONITORING OF OFFICIAL DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE TO HIV/AIDS

  The UNAIDS Secretariat has made significant progress in establishing sustainable processes for monitoring of donor country resource flows to HIV/AIDS on a long term and sustainable basis, but some key issues remain.

  Some major DAC members including France and the European Commission continue to have major difficulties in the reporting of their official development assistance allocated to HIV/AIDS.

  There continue to be differences in the ways that different donors define HIV/AIDS activities. This is particularly problematic the monitoring of HIV/AIDS components within integrated development projects or HIV/AIDS allocations within sector wide approaches and common basket funding schemes.

  Because of administrative differences among the DAC member countries, including differences in fiscal years, there is a significant delay in reporting. It is only possible to report on donor country HIV/AIDS expenditures almost two years late (ie reporting on 1998 data in a mid 2000).

  Working closely with the DAC, UNFPA and the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI), the UNAIDS Secretariat plans to convene a meeting of donor country representatives to agree on a common methodology for reporting on HIV/AIDS components within integrated development projects and HIV/AIDS allocations within sector wide approaches and common basket funding schemes.

  To supplement its monitoring of donor country HIV/AIDS obligations, the UNAIDS Secretariat is in the process of establishing a process to sysematically monitor pledges and allocations to HIV/AIDS.

UNAIDS

January 2001


6   All information on level and flow of official development assistance as taken from "Development Assistance Committee International Development Statistics." OECD website: http://www.oecd.org/dac/htm/dcdrsd-e.htm., 22 May 2000. Back


 
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