Bill Gates announced a new contribution of $80 million today to Avahan, an initiative the Gates Foundation launched in 2003 for HIV prevention programs in India.

Gates is visiting India this week to receive an award for the foundation's philanthropic work and to take stock of the Avahan program. Before today the foundation had already committed $258 million to the program, which involves more than 100 non-profits in six Indian states.

Gates will meet Friday with Ghulam Nabi Azad, the Union Secretary for Health and Family Welfare, to discuss "plans to gradually transition key aspects of Avahan to the government of India and other partners," the foundation said this morning in a statement.

Gates is contributing more funding for the transition after the government questioned the sustainability of maintaining the project on its own.

Avahan, which means "call to action" in Sanskrit, was the subject of a critical report in Forbes magazine last month, which concluded the $258 million project "got lost between B-school and brothel."

The article picked up on a theme that may run through many of Gates programs for better or worse: the tendency to apply business and technology solutions to global health and development problems.

The foundation's most ambitious initiative in India has largely failed to deliver on its goals because it substituted business expertise for practical health experience and spent too much money on things like salaries, travel and marketing, the report contends.

The program is run by Ashok Alexander, an executive recruited from consulting firm McKinsey. He has been among the foundation's highest paid employees, with a salary of about $425,000.

Alexander discussed the program's work in an interview with Conde Nast in December. He was asked how his business background has helped him run an AIDS program.

"This was a marketing challenge," he said. "Our "consumers" were hidden, and the question was how to aggregate them. The women wanted to get into a violence-reduction program, not a condom program. Most HIV programs are supply-side driven: You count treatments and how many condoms are distributed. In this case, the consumer wasn't interested in the product. We had to persuade the consumer it was in her interest to be strong and healthy."

Tachi Yamada, president of the foundation's global health program, wrote a letter in response to the Forbes article.

"There's no evidence for the claim that Avahan has failed to "make a serious difference in India's fight against AIDS," Yamada wrote. "Avahan support has made it possible to provide prevention services to hundreds of thousands of high-risk individuals every month. While it is too early to fully assess Avahan's long-term impact, early signs are encouraging--data from some projects suggest these efforts are increasing condom use and reducing STD infections."

Meanwhile Avahan has begun handing over the reins to the government-run National AIDS Control Organisation. The government body had warned that large parts of the program are unsustainable, according to an Indian official quoted in Forbes.

During the transition, "Avahan will provide financial and technical support to ensure that prevention programs can be sustained over time," the foundation said today. Avahan has awarded more than $100 million in grants for the transition.

Gates is in New Delhi this week to receive the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament, and Development on behalf of his foundation. The Gates Foundation is being recognized for "pioneering and exemplary philanthropic work around the world and in India in health."

He congratulated the Indian government for its leadership on HIV prevention, saying it could be a model for the rest of the world.