Nigeria Seeks $890m To Tackle HIV, TB, Malaria

Nigeria is applying for 890 million dollars grant from Global Fund to reduce the burden of HIV, Tuberculosis and Malaria from 2021 to 2023.

Mr Dozie Ezechukwu, the Executive Secretary, Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM) Global Fund Nigeria, disclosed this on Monday in Abuja.

CCM Nigeria, the custodian of Global Fund (GF) grant, is a body of representatives of government, bilateral and multilateral organisations,

Civil Society Organisations, patients, communities, private sector and academia.

The mandate of CCM is to oversee the delivery of Global Fund HIV, Tuberculosis, Malaria and Resilient Sustainable Systems for Health (RSSH) grant.

Ezechukwu said that malaria would take the highest allocation of 417. 8 million dollars, followed by HIV with 329.1 million dollars and Tuberculosis (TB), 143.5 million dollars.

According to him, malaria will take 47 per cent of the allocation; HIV, 37 per cent, while TB will take 16 per cent.

“Global Fund encourages countries to invest in strengthening health and community systems as they are essential to accelerating progress toward ending the epidemics.’’

He said Federal Government was serious about transparency and accountability for the grants to be spent properly.

“Federal Government is serious about transparency not only on this grant but other resources received from international donor partners.

“We have put in place measures to prevent any mismanagement and also had an agreement on the disbursement.

“You see that we are going for another round of application; Global Fund has even increased our allocation from what it used to be.

“We are going to take 890 million dollars for the three diseases in the next three years (2021 to 2023).”

The official thanked the CCM members “for the commitment in ensuring transparency and accountability in coordination of the grant.”

Members of CCM met on Jan. 17 in Abuja to discuss the provision of Indirect Cost Recovery for local NGOs serving as implementers.

They also discussed programmes to develop and roadmap on funding request for diseases, harmonising roadmap for funding request, copy of Chemonics contract to be shared by Global Fund, among others.

The meeting also deliberated on CCM operations for the year and grant performance, identified challenges and proffered solutions.

The meeting also provided opportunity for the CCM to address emerging issues of importance.