Accra: The Ghana HIV and AIDS Network (GHANET) has called on the government to urgently capitalize the National HIV and AIDS Fund to gradually wean Ghana off donor funding.
According to Ghana News Agency, Mr. Ernest Amoabeng Ortsin, President of GHANET, emphasized that the Fund would serve as a statutory, permanent financial mechanism to transition Ghana from emergency donor reliance towards a self-reliant, domestically funded national HIV response. He explained that for more than two decades, external partners, primarily the Global Fund and the United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), have funded more than 70 percent of Ghana's HIV commodities, diagnostics, and prevention programs.
Mr. Ortsin highlighted that the core operational objective of the Fund was to ensure that the 337,435 Ghanaians living with HIV did not experience treatment disruptions. Legally, the Fund is mandated to finance Antiretroviral Therapy (ART), direct procurement of life-saving medications, diagnostic tools, reagents, CD4 count kits, viral load testing supplies, prevention technologies, condoms, Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP), and Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), including long-acting biomedical innovations.
He suggested leveraging resources from the National Health Insurance Levy (NHIL) to finance the Fund, pointing it out as a 'low-hanging fruit'. He remarked on the potential conversion of the COVID-19 Fund into a preparedness fund, emphasizing the necessity for the National HIV and AIDS Fund to be fully seeded to prevent stock-outs and coverage disruptions as international partners shift their priorities.
The National HIV and AIDS Fund was legally established under Part Four of Act 938, which repealed the earlier Ghana AIDS Commission Act, 2002 (Act 613). This legislation placed the Ghana AIDS Commission under the administrative oversight of the Office of the President and created the Fund as a permanent statutory vehicle to mobilize domestic financial resources, cushioning the country against international funding volatility.
Under Act 938, the Fund serves four main strategic purposes: commodity procurement, community interventions, research and surveillance, and sustainable domestic financing. Commodity procurement involves securing an uninterrupted national supply of ART drugs, diagnostic testing kits, viral load reagents, and condoms. Community interventions focus on financing grassroots prevention, peer counseling, anti-stigma campaigns, and Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) initiatives. Research and surveillance support local epidemiological studies, routine surveillance, and monitoring led by the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC) and research institutions. Meanwhile, sustainable domestic financing aims to create a permanent financial buffer as major international partners gradually transition their financial support.
Dr. Fred Nana Poku, Director of Technical Services at the GAC, noted that since the passage of Act 938, the Commission had established operational guidelines, including the National HIV Prevention Roadmap (2026-2028), to outline resource allocation frameworks. Progress has also been made in tracking compliance among Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs), which are required to allocate between 0.5 and one percent of their District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) allocations to local HIV activities. Additionally, technical engagements are ongoing between the Ministry of Health, GAC, and the National Health Insurance Authority to integrate routine HIV screening and baseline diagnostics into the National Health Insurance Scheme benefit package.
Despite these policy frameworks, the Fund faces a significant operational challenge: the lack of dedicated seed capitalization. Currently, the Fund relies on periodic government allocations rather than a continuous statutory revenue stream or fully activated corporate levy. The National HIV and AIDS Fund represents a critical legislative mechanism for protecting Ghana's health sovereignty, and establishing a dedicated statutory funding source is vital to safeguarding the health of people living with HIV and achieving the global 95-95-95 targets by 2030.
Mr. Ortsin also called for greater private sector integration, asserting that it is a necessity for sustainable national health programming. "The sustainability of our fight lies in our ability to invest locally. Over-reliance on international funding leaves our national HIV programs vulnerable to global economic and political shifts, as well as unpredictable donor freezes," he stated.