United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan warned that failure to speed up disbursement of grants already made to the campaign against AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis put at risk necessary new contributions.

"Inextricably linked to resource mobilization efforts is the equally urgent need to improve the management of grant disbursements," Annan told the ninth high-level session of the Board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a unique public-private partnership created nearly three years ago on his initiative.

"The urgency of the AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria epidemics demand that already committed resources reach those who need them far more rapidly than they do today," he said in a message to the meeting in Arusha, Tanzania, delivered by Peter Piot, executive director of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS.

While necessary oversight was necessary to ensure the money is being spent wisely, equal attention should be paid to overcoming system constraints to disbursement at the country level by working with partners to strengthen key national institutions and systems, he added.

"Clearly, the Fund cannot do this alone. But without progress in this area, it will remain difficult to persuade donors to make further contributions to the Fund," he noted.

The Board session is focusing on how increased investments can drive back the three pandemics in the Great Lakes area of Africa, one of the world's worst-affected regions, and will decide when to call for a new round of grant applications which would be submitted for approval next year.

Since it was created in early 2002, the Fund has approved proposals worth $3.1 billion to 314 grants in 128 countries. Of this $570 million goes to the countries of the Lake Victoria region.