The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is implementing an HIV/AIDS grant agreement with Belize to treat and prevent the disease among the large number of teens and young adults in the country, which has the highest incidence of HIV/AIDS in Central America.

“Scaling up treatment isn’t just a moral imperative, it’s a practical possibility, even in poor countries,” Jeffrey O’Malley, Director of the HIV/AIDS Group in the UNDP Bureau for Development Policy, said yesterday of UNDP’s agreement to manage the $3.1-million grant from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, & Malaria.

The fund is an international financing institution that to date has committed $21.7 billion in 150 countries to support large-scale prevention, treatment and care programmes for the three diseases.

“This partnership between the Global Fund and UNDP is the best of both worlds,” said Francisco Roquette, UNDP Assistant Resident Representative in Belize, which has a total population of just 333,200, 35 per cent of whom are younger than 14. “It’s a perfect combination of very global knowledge with very concrete understanding of the challenges on the ground.”