Ottawa is set to donate $250-million towards a new international aid strategy to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in the Third World.

The first instalment will be announced in Montreal today by Aileen Carroll, who is the minister responsible for the Canadian International Development Agency.

Carroll will be speaking to a group of international scientists researching a vaccine for AIDS.

The money, which will flow over a two-year period, will be sent to the Global Fund, an international agency designed to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

However, sources said the government has plans for hundreds of millions more as it announces the rest of its strategy in stages over the next few months.

"Our initiative is much bigger than just the Global Fund," an unnamed source told The Globe and Mail.

"This is just the first piece of it. There will be more components coming out over the coming months."

The move comes just months after Prime Minister Paul Martin was criticized by U2 frontman Bono for 'foot-dragging' in Third-World relief.

The Global Fund was established in 2002 and has since given $3-billion US to 128 nations.

It's believed that Canada's pledge will make it the second-largest per-capita contributor.

The new Canadian strategy will have two distinct goals.

First, it will provide money to try to control so-called core diseases, including tuberculosis, AIDS and malaria.

To that end, the Global Fund pays for items such as TB medicines, drugs for AIDS and netting that is commonly placed over children's beds to protect against malaria-bearing mosquitoes.

It will also put aside money to help developing nations strengthen and maintain their own health-care systems.

"A lot of that will include sending over Canadian expertise, sending over Canadian experts on how to run hospitals," the source told The Globe.

The lack of infrastructure is particularly acute in Africa.

Earlier this summer, Carroll visited Niger, a country plagued by famine.

The government strategy could also include providing Canadian computers and expertise to increase the flow of information to medical professionals seeking to control disease.

It's believed Canadian workers plan to spend time analyzing gaps in the global health infrastructure that it believes it may be able to help fill.

The minister is expected to announce a number of additional steps today in her department's agenda.

One of the department's chief goals is to help the nations achieve enduring success in critical areas such as infant and child health, food security and nutrition, and research into vaccines.

It's estimated that the three diseases being fought by the Global Fund kill at least six million every year.

Last year, the federal government pledged $70 million CDN toward AIDS relief.