UGANDA
Male to Male relationships: Not Legal
Punishments for male to male relationships: Imprisonment of 10 years or more
Female to Female Relationships: Not Legal
Marriage and Substitutes for Marriage: No law
Gay or lesbian able to serve in the armed forces: No
To the editor,
The article headlined “Global Fund withholds shs700b for ARV treatment over gay rights”, which appeared on your website on 15 November 2011, contains inaccuracies about why the Global Fund rejected a recent application for HIV funding.
In 2010, Uganda submitted a Round 10 application to the Global Fund asking for $217 million for HIV and $25 million for health systems strengthening.
A panel of independent experts turned down the HIV proposal mainly because significant funds from an earlier HIV grant are still unspent, raising doubts about Uganda’s ability to take on a much larger HIV grant before it had effectively invested the resources it already has available. At the time of the panel review, only 11.6 per cent of the money available from the earlier grant had been disbursed.
In addition, the panel noted a likely overlap between the interventions in the earlier grant and the Round 10 proposal. It also questioned the soundness of the Round 10 proposal’s budget. In addition, the HIV proposal failed to adequately address equitable access of services especially with respect to particularly vulnerable populations.
The earlier grant continues to have a low spending rate and the fund, as a result, has reduced the second phase of the funding.
Following an appeal by Uganda, the Global Fund’s Independent Appeals Panel upheld the decision not to fund the HIV proposal. This decision is published on our website http://theglobalfund.org/en/trp/appealsreports/
Sincerely,
Jon Lidén
Communications Director
External Relations and Partnerships Cluster