World leaders pledge billions to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria on UN sidelines
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has secured $14.25bn in crucial new funding, after decades of progress against the diseases was derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
United States President Joe Biden, who hosted the conference in New York City on the sidelines of the annual high-level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), said the funding — the highest amount ever pledged for a multilateral health organisation — is crucial to combating the diseases.
This is an investment that will save another 20 million lives, reduce mortality from these diseases another 64 percent in the next four years,” said Biden.The fund, a public/private alliance set up in 2002, is seeking $18bn for its next three-year funding cycle from governments, civil society and the private sector.
Before Wednesday’s conference, it had already raised more than a third of the total.“What’s happened today is actually an unparalleled mobilisation of resources for global health,” said Global Fund Executive Director Peter Sands.
Thank you all for stepping up, especially in a challenging global economic environment, and I ask you, keep it going,” urged Biden.
According to UNAIDS, there were 990,000 adults and children in Malawi living with HIV in 2021, and USAID says that tuberculosis is a “major public health problem in Malawi”.Among the donors, the US has pledged the most at $6bn.
France, Germany, Japan, Canada, the European Union and the Gates Foundation also announced sizeable commitments.
South Korea quadrupled its 2019 pledge to $100 million, while Indonesia made its first-ever commitment, offering $10 million.
Within the UK, there was some criticism of the government’s decision to delay its announcement.In a Twitter post, shadow foreign secretary David Lammy said it would “slow the fight against AIDS, TB and malaria and damage the UK’s national interest”.
The Global Fund provides 30 percent of all international financing for HIV programmes, 76 percent of funding for TB, and 63 percent of funding for malaria.
Under US law, the country cannot provide more than one-third of funding for the Global Fund — a limit designed to serve as a matching challenge to other nations to double the US pledge.
