Zimbabwe National AIDS Trust Fund

A dedicated Zimbabwean funding mechanism for the country's HIV and AIDS response, established when Parliament enacted sections 14 and 15 of the Finance Act, Chapter 23:04, in 1999, creating a National AIDS Trust Fund financed by a 3 percent tax on individual income and a 3 percent tax on the profits of employers and trusts, popularly known as the AIDS Levy, which took effect in January 2000. The mechanism drew on a precedent Zimbabwe had already set with a drought levy enacted after a crippling 1992 drought, which had established both the legal model and the working cooperation among the president, Parliament, the finance and health ministries and labor groups needed to create a dedicated tax for a specific national problem. The Fund is managed by the parastatal National AIDS Council through a decentralized structure of AIDS Action Committees, with at least half of its revenue directed by policy toward the purchase of antiretroviral medications and the remainder covering HIV prevention, monitoring and evaluation, and administrative and capital costs; revenue grew steadily even through Zimbabwe's 2006 to 2008 hyperinflation crisis and continued rising after the country's 2009 dollarization, reaching 38.6 million dollars by 2014.