ZAN's petition submitted to the Parliament of Zimbabwe on the funding gaps for the procurement of ARVs
Monday 9 September 2019 ZAN appeared before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health to present evidence as a follow-up to the petition submitted to the Parliament of Zimbabwe on the funding gaps for the procurement of ARVs. On the 25th of June 2019 civil society led by ZAN petitioned the parliament to exercise its oversight role in ensuring the constitutionally provided right to health is recognised .With particular emphasise being on the right to health for Persons living with HIV. In terms of HIV treatment support:
- The Global Fund (GF) provides around 710 000 ART clients
- PEPFAR support 193 000
- GoZ through the National AIDS Council is expected to cover for 113 000 ART clients
As highlighted above GF is the major supporter for the procurement of ARVS and in order , to increase country ownership and build the sustainability of programs, the GF funding model includes a requirement for countries to commit to co-financing the response to AIDS, TB and Malaria. Countries are required to commit that, during the implementation period they will:
- Increase government spending on health.
- Evidence of the country’s commitment to co-financing is necessary in order to access their allocation
- Of the total amount allocated to each country, at least 15% will be made available to encourage countries to make additional investments in their response. To access the incentive portion of their allocation, countries will need to commit to additional co-financing over and above previous levels of spending
Under the current grant the country had pledge to pay USD 30 million mostly from the National AIDS Trust Fund (NATF). As of this year; the Country Coordinating Mechanism joint CCM-HDP reported that 6.9million is money owed to suppliers for commodities supplied to the country between 2017 and 2018. These commodities that include ARVS and Lab reagents have already been consumed. The net effect of this is that suppliers now want their money upfront before shipment. In a CCM update from NAC; this has not happened and now we are experiencing drug stock out, this is despite the fact that as of 2019 NAC had a 23 million dollar budget for procurements.
