Prometheus 6   

Global AIDS Fund Finding Few Answers to Its Cash Shortage
By JOHN TAGLIABUE

PARIS, July 16 — Representatives of countries contributing to a fund to support the global struggle against AIDS and other diseases that are ravaging the developing world met in Paris today but made little progress toward easing a cash crisis expected later this year.

The United States secretary of health and human services, Tommy G. Thompson, the chairman of the fund's board, said that approval of projects costing $1.6 billion were pending at the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Roughly 40 percent of them, costing $750 million, would likely be approved when the fund's directors meet in October, he said, yet only $400 million has been pledged.

Addressing a one-day conference, which accompanied the International AIDS Society Conference in Paris this week, Mr. Thompson said the fund needed $3 billion by the end of 2004. `'I hope we can negotiate this into real money by October," he said.

At the same time, governments were upstaged by private donors, after the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it would pay $100 million into the fund immediately. The foundation originally pledged $50 million as a first installment and a further $50 million over the next 10 years, making it a larger donor than Britain or Germany, which pledged between $40 million and $48 million.