The relationships between foreign aid, HIV and government health spending

Abstract

This paper provides an empirical evaluation of adult HIV prevalence rates, foreign aid for HIV/AIDS programmes, and the amount of government spending on health care. It finds that there exists a statistically significant relationship between adult HIV prevalence rates and the amount of foreign funding for HIV/AIDS programmes, suggesting that need does in fact play some role in the allocation of HIV aid. It suggests there may be an additive relationship between foreign and domestic health spending, where governments turn the funding of their AIDS programmes over to foreign donors and instead put their own monies toward other parts of the health care system. © The Author 2010; all rights reserved.