US$14.02 billion pledged to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (9-10 October 2019, Lyon) [fr]
Every three years, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria holds a conference to replenish its financial resources. At this event, all public and private sector donors announce their financial pledges. Guests also include the Global Fund’s partners and civil society, both of which are involved in mobilization efforts and programme implementation in their countries. Donations are used to directly finance programmes to prevent and fight these three major pandemics, which kill approximately 2.5 million people every year.
Today, the international community risks seeing a setback in the elimination of these diseases. To protect the progress made to date and rise to the challenges we face, the international community needs to join forces and step up efforts to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 3 (universal access to health).
Watch French Ambassador for Global health, Stéphanie Seydoux’s message:
The goal: to save 16 million lives
The donors, who met in Lyon for the Sixth Replenishment Conference of the Global Fund, pledged US$14.02 billion to fund the fight for the next three years. It is the largest amount ever raised for a multilateral health organization, and the largest amount by the Global Fund.
The aim is to gather more money than during the last funding conference in 2016 ($12.2 billion). This money will allow the Global Fund to support affected countries and populations with a view to saving 16 million lives, preventing 234 million new infections and continuing to finance innovations and improvements for health systems. This commitment is essential if we wish to eliminate these three pandemics by 2030.
More information about the Conference.
Since the Global Fund was created, it has saved 32 million lives. It has had a decisive impact on the evolution of these diseases. The HIV/AIDS mortality rate has been halved since 2002. However, despite the progress made to date, challenges still need to be addressed:
- In 2018, 37.9 million people were living with HIV, and the number of new cases was again on the rise in around 50 countries.
- Malaria killed more than 435,000 people in 2017 and progress has stagnated since 2015.
- In 2017, tuberculosis killed 1.3 million people, drug-resistant forms of the disease are spreading, and new cases grew by 10% in West and Central Africa.
France: fully committed
Emmanuel Macron, the French President, decided to host the Sixth Replenishment Conference to show France’s determination to achieve this Sustainable Development Goal. The Conference took place in Lyon, a major French city at the forefront of global health.
France was one of the founders of the Global Fund. It is fully committed to the Fund’s governance and has contributed €4.61 billion since the Fund was created in 2002, which makes it the second-largest contributor from a historical point of view. In this 6th edition, France committed to increasing its contribution by 20% to reach US$ 1.429 billion.
It also provides high-level support to Unitaid, which plays a key role in developing and providing access to innovative approaches to diagnosing and treating these three pandemics. France is an important supporter of GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, which supports immunization around the world. It also works with the World Health Organization to prevent and respond to health crises, strengthen health systems through an integrated patient-centred health model, and implement universal health coverage. The fight against the most serious infectious diseases means strengthening all aspects of health systems, including communities, hospitals, prevention efforts and state-of-the-art care, without leaving anyone behind.
Throughout its G7 Presidency, France has focused on global health and identified the Sahel region as a priority area, working to ensure that States and major non-State stakeholders renew their commitments to achieving the Sustainable Development Goal for health. It has also advocated for States affected by pandemics and Global Fund beneficiaries to make commitments to funding their health systems. By ensuring that donors increase or make new contributions, and by ensuring that more national resources are leveraged for health, France and the international community can take decisive action against the AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria pandemics, in order to eliminate them completely by 2030.