UNAIDS chief urges Carney to reverse planned global health funding cuts

The head of the United Nations' HIV/AIDS program is urging Prime Minister Mark Carney to reverse his government's planned cuts in global health funding and foreign aid.

The head of the United Nations’ HIV/AIDS program is urging Prime Minister Mark Carney to reverse his government’s planned cuts to foreign aid and global health funding.

“My message to Prime Minister Carney, to Canada, and to all the other donors is, stay the course,” UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima told The Canadian Press on the sidelines of last week’s G20 leaders’ summit in Johannesburg.

“Without global solidarity, the inequality between countries will continue to widen. We will live in a more dangerous world as these inequalities increase.”

Last week, Carney announced Canada’s first-ever cut to funding for the Global Fund, a major program for fighting infectious diseases in the world’s poorest countries.

The new funding pledge is 17 per cent lower than Ottawa’s last contribution to the fund in 2022. The fund helps combat the spread of diseases such as AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria through measures like providing mosquito nets and medication for HIV patients.

The move came just weeks after the federal budget called for $2.7 billion in cuts over four years to foreign aid — and months after Carney vowed during the spring election campaign that his government would “not cut foreign aid.”

The Carney government argues the aid cut brings spending back in line with Canada’s pre-pandemic allocations.

Ottawa increased its development and humanitarian spending during the pandemic, in part to restore stalled progress on fighting major illnesses such as AIDS and tuberculosis as governments turned their attention to COVID-19. The United States radically cut back its aid spending this year.