News about India's 2007 budget (released on March 1st) heralds the fairly substantial Government of India (GOI) allocation of domestic resources towards HIV/AIDS and much of that is for prevention, to boot!
Approximately $200 million has now been allocated for the AIDS control program (up from ~$130 million for 2006/2007), with more than 75% of the overall funding directed to prevention and targeted intervention programs. According to Director General of National AIDS Control Organisation, K Sujatha Rao, "we are now in a position to beat AIDS within the next five years" and that AIDS is "on its way out" in light of the government's increased contribution combined with funding from other agencies.
While this goal may be a bit ambitious, the GOI should be applauded for ensuring that prevention is a major focus of the third phase of the National AIDS Control and Prevention (NACP-III) that will be launched in April 2007. The World Bank has been a main financier of NACO, providing $84 million for Phase I of the National AIDS Control Project and $191 million for Phase II (see the Kaiser fact sheet for more information), so this GOI contribution is relatively on par with donors like the World Bank and far exceeds others like the Global Fund and U.S. bilateral support ($28 million for a non-focus country) through PEPFAR. While external donor agencies support both prevention and treatment interventions, the GOI is clearly thinking very carefully about where it can invest its own rupees for the highest return. Prevention programs are relatively lower cost than treatment programs, but the full outcome and impact of these programs are not realized for years. While some donors may focus on results easily counted and reported in a fiscal year, such as numbers enrolled for treatment, the GOI is suggesting that it also has the patience for prevention. If this is the case, it would be interesting to find out if NACO is putting some metrics in place to monitor and evaluate these prevention activities to demonstrate that it was worth investing in prevention and equally worth waiting to find out.
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