Burkina Faso: $1.5 Million Project To Fight AIDS

Burkina Faso: UN To Administer New $1.5 Million Project To Fight HIV/AIDS

Burkina Faso will receive an interest-free loan of $1.5 million from the African Development Fund (ADF) to strengthen community initiatives for preventing, testing and treating HIV/AIDS in a new project administered through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

UNDP Acting Resident Representative Anna S. Coulibaly and Joseph André Tiendrébéogo, Permanent Secretary of Burkina Faso’s National Council for AIDS Control, signed the 36-month grant agreement within an ADF programme called "Operational Support to Associations' and NGOs' Activities to Fight AIDS."

ADF is a part of the Côte d’Ivoire-based African Development Bank Group and lends members interest-free, low-fee funds with the specific aim of reducing poverty.

Through UNDP, Burkina Faso also has access to a two-year, $7 million grant from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to prevent mother-to-child transmission and to provide medical care and community training.

The total number of Burkinabe people of all ages living with AIDS was estimated at 440,000 in 2001, up from just 10 cases in 1986.

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