Future of Ukraine’s AIDS assistance remains uncertain
June 28, 2006 at 03:28t all.
The World Bank inked an agreement with the Ukrainian government in April 2003, and the $60 million was put under the supervision of the country’s Health Ministry, but The World Bank stopped payment on the loan in April this year citing a lack of progress by the Ukrainian government in implementing the program.
“The World Bank is taking this action because the project has failed to make any significant impact on the growing threat of TB and HIV/AIDS in Ukraine and the neighboring countries,” Paul Bermingham, World Bank Director for Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova announced on April 12.
The World Bank said that only 2 percent of loan proceeds turned over to Ukraine had been spent, with most of this going toward project administrative costs rather than direct support to Ukrainians affected by the two deadly diseases.
On May 18, the World Bank announced in a statement that it would be ready to continue loan payments after the Ukrainian government took steps to improve the project’s management and implementation system.
“The World Bank reaffirms its commitment to work with the government, civil society organizations, and international partners and donors to achieve the objectives of the project,” Bermingham said.
“However, the problems that impeded the project are long-standing and deep-rooted. In our view, the project, and indeed the national program, will only succeed if there are significant changes from past practice,” he added.
The World Bank said that the Ukrainian government must improve its procurement practices by involving United Nations organizations in the process and develop a definite plan of project management for the suspension to be lifted.
Ukrainian Health Minister Yuriy Polyachenko said at a June 20 press conference that the project had been suspended due to bureaucratic procrastination on the part of the Ukrainian government as well as the World Bank.
“We cannot talk about corruption here. The money was in the bank account, but it was not used,” he said.
Ulyana Lozan, the head of the Health Ministry’s press service, told the Post on June 21 that delays in the use of the money were due to continuing changes in Ukraine’s legislation.
“On the date the agreement was signed, Ukrainian law corresponded to World Bank rules. However, since 1999, Ukrainian legislation has undergone substantial changes. In particular, the law on state procurements changed several times,” she said.
The ministry’s press service said that at the beginning of June, representatives of the World Bank, the Health Ministry and non-governmental organizations created a working group to develop a new project strategy taking into account the World Bank’s demands.
Health Minister Polyachenko believes that the program can be re-launched as early as this September. However, Lozan said that the World Bank has given no official deadline for restarting the program.
On Jan. 30, 2004, less than a month after the World Bank loan to Ukraine’s Health Ministry went into effect, the UK-based Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria suspended a $25 million grant that it had pledged to the ministry and two other organizations in Ukraine over a two-year period, citing “challenges in management” and “slow progress.” The other two organizations were the Ukrainian Fund to Fight HIV Infection and AIDS, and the United Nations Development Programme in Kyiv.
The Global Fund subsequently turned the program over to the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, an organization that receives support from several Western governments and private funds, under an almost $15 million agreement for one year.
In a September 2005 press release posted on its website, the Alliance, which has a country office in Ukraine, said that it had signed a new, three-year, 55.5-million-euro agreement with the Global Fund to continue its HIV/AIDS prevention work in Ukraine as the principal recipient of the Global Fund’s HIV/AIDS grant in the country.
Irina Borushek, a senior advisor for International HIV/AIDS Alliance in Ukraine, blames current officials at Ukraine’s Health Ministry for the recent cancellation of the World Bank loan.
According to Borushek, Deputy Health Minister Vasyl Ivasiuk, who was appointed by Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov last February, doesn’t want to cooperate with international lenders or local NGOs.
“We hope that things will change for the better with a new government,” she told the Post on June 26.
“Hundreds of projects in the regions are awaiting funds, and of course this can be felt,” she added.
Borushek said that although the growth rate in mortalities among AIDS patients has been decreasing, the rate of new infections has been on the rise.
Prevention of new infections is exactly what the recently suspended World Bank loan targeted.According to the Alliance, around 1 percent of people in Ukraine are living with HIV/AIDS, the highest prevalence of HIV among adults aged 15–49 in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Around 70 percent of the country’s AIDS cases are drug addicts.