ABUJA, Dec. 8 (Xinhuanet) -- AIDS resources have grown rapidly in recent years, from 300 million US dollars in 1996 to 8 billion dollars in 2005, according to a new World Bank document on Wednesday.

    The document, entitled: The World Bank's Global HIV/AIDS Program of Action, was released in Abuja, Nigeria, at the ongoing six-day 14th International Conference on HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA) which will end on Friday.

    In the past five years, the document said, the bank has dramatically increased its support for HIV/AIDS programs. "Cumulative total bank commitments now exceed 2.5 billion dollars," it said.

    It said funding increases for AIDS in Africa had been particularly impressive, from an average of 10 million dollars annually 10 years ago to 250 million dollars or 300 million dollars annually in each of the last four years.

    The document said that the Africa Multi-Country AIDS Program (MAP) had committed 1.12 billion dollars for 29 countries and four regional projects, while the Caribbean MAP had committed 118 million dollars for nine countries and one regional project.

    It said that although the bank started lending for HIV/AIDS in 1988, more than a decade passed before the bank began to apply the full range of its tools and talents to confronting the epidemic.

    "Some of the bank's early work produced important and lasting results, but the failure to make HIV a priority kept those results from evoking or informing a broader institutional response," it said.

    The document said that neither its shareholders nor its managers gave AIDS the priority it warranted, and few Bank clients asked for advice or funding for HIV/AIDS.

    "Most other public organizations were also slow to react in those early years, but as a leader in development, the bank bore a special responsibility which it failed to fulfill," it added.

    The document said that the bank would remain a major financier of AIDS activities globally, alongside the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the United States and the United Kingdom and other financing partners.

    It said that the bank's financing role increasingly would reflect its greater flexibility with respect to both the countries and range of activities it can finance.

    The document said that the bank was likely to remain a major source of finance for HIV/AIDS in many of the lowest income International Development Association (IDA) countries particularly those in central and west Africa with limited access to other AIDS funding.

    "The bank can also lend to middle-income International Bank for reconstruction and Development (IBRD) countries that are ineligible for other sources of financing," it said.

    According to the document, the bank has demonstrated an ability to establish AIDS program in post-conflict countries, often more rapidly than other major financing mechanisms.

    "The ability to fund regional program enables the bank to support HIV/AIDS efforts in countries that are ineligible for national assistance, and for cross-border activities. Predictable, multi-year bank funding can help countries ensure sustainability of their HIV/AIDS programs," it added. Enditem