Global Fund Eyes $8 bln from Donors to Fight Disease

BERLIN - Anti-poverty campaigners led by rock star Bono want the world's rich nations this week to pledge about $8 billion for the next three years to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

The Global Fund, a multi-lateral body which channels funding for projects to combat the diseases, opens a three-day conference to boost its coffers in Berlin on Wednesday.

The diseases kill 6 million people a year, say campaigners.

Rock star Bono, long involved in the campaign to fight poverty, urged countries to pay up.

"(The Fund) is working; there are measurable results. No more excuses for underfunding this most high-minded public health mechanism," Bono said in a statement released by the DATA (Debt AIDS Trade Africa) group on Tuesday.

Britain said on Tuesday it would contribute 1 billion pounds ($2.0 billion) up to 2015, including 360 million pounds for 2008-2010. Campaigners denounced the commitment as being only half the amount Britain had previously pledged.

"That the UK is only doing half (of what it pledged) is very poor, that they are announcing it two days before other countries sets the bar very low for other people, this is negative and very unhelpful," said Steve Cockburn of the Stop AIDS Campaign.

In June, Britain and other Group of Eight industrialised nations committed to $6-$8 billion per year replenishment of the Global Fund by 2010 at a summit hosted by Germany.

The Fund claims to have saved 2 million lives since it was created in 2002 through partnerships with governments, the private sector and local communities.

Overall, the Fund needs $12-18 billion for the next three years but some major contributors, including Japan and the United States, will not make pledges in Berlin as the timing does not fit their budgetary cycle, said the Fund's Jon Liden.

"We think we could see initial upfront contributions from the conference worth about $8 billion for three years," he said.

France, Germany and Scandinavian nations are among those set to make the biggest commitments, he said.

Since 2001 the Fund has signed agreements worth $7.6 billion for 450 grants in 136 countries.