Reflecting on Global Fund's decade of accomplishment, looking forward to challenges ahead

Jan 27 2012

"This week marks the 10th anniversary of the creation of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria -- the world's most powerful tool for improving health -- at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland," Natasha Bilimoria, president of Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, writes in this post in the AlertNet "Insight" blog. During an announcement at the WEF on Wednesday that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will donate an additional $750 million to the Global Fund, Bill Gates said, "By supporting the Global Fund, we can help to change the fortunes of the poorest countries in the world," Bilimoria says, writing, "He's right. ... In total, the Global Fund is responsible for saving the lives of roughly 4,400 people every day."

"A groundbreaking innovation, the Global Fund was conceived a decade ago at the [WEF] as an emergency response to the three diseases," she writes, and continues, "Through the Global Fund, [PEPFAR] and other programs, the world rallied around this cause in a broad coalition never before seen." Bilimoria concludes, "This milestone anniversary is an opportunity to look back at this unprecedented movement and what was accomplished in the past decade. But more important, it's a chance to look forward to a new chapter in the Global Fund's work. So much has been done, but there is so much more to do" (1/26).