June 9, 2016
Later this year, the Global Fund will organize its Fifth Replenishment Pledging Conference to raise funds for the 2017-2019 funding cycle. The Global Fund is seeking to raise $13 billion, pledged from the public and private sectors, which would enable the Global Fund partnership to save an additional 8 million lives and avert 300 million new infections of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, as well as advance our shared goal of ending these diseases as epidemics by 2030. For this edition of Friends’ congressional e-newsletter, we will focus on a couple of key Replenishment announcements made over the past month.
Canada to host Global Fund Fifth Replenishment Pledging Conference in September
On May 9, the Government of Canada announced that the Fifth Replenishment Pledging Conference will be held in Montréal, Québec on September 16. During the official announcement in Ottawa, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also pledged 785 million Canadian dollars to the Global Fund for the 2017-2019 Replenishment period, a 20 percent increase above Canada’s previous pledge.
“This is an historic opportunity for Canada and the world,” said Prime Minister Trudeau. “By fast-tracking investments and building global solidarity, we can bring an end to three devastating epidemics – AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria – that have tragic and far-reaching impacts on the world’s most vulnerable people.”
Prime Minister Trudeau pledges support for the Global Fund during an event in Ottawa to announce that Canada will host the Fifth Replenishment Conference. In the background, from left to right, Dr. Mark Dybul, Executive Director of the Global Fund, Melinda Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Loyce Maturu, a Zimbabwean HIV-positive peer educator, TB survivor and Global Fund advocate.
Japan Increases Commitment to the Global Fund
On May 20, in advance of the G-7 Summit in Ise-Shima, Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced an $800 million pledge to the Global Fund for the Fifth Replenishment. Japan has been a strong leader in global health, and introduced infectious diseases to the agenda of the G8 Summit in Okinawa, Japan in 2000, which paved the way for the establishment of the Global Fund in 2002. Japan is the Global Fund’s fifth largest contributor.
During the G7 Ise-Shima Summit, the following was included in the leaders’ declaration:
We are committed to ending AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, working in partnership with the Global Fund (GF) and others. To this end, we fully support a successful 5th replenishment of the GF, taking the opportunity of the GF replenishment conference in Montreal in September, and call on traditional and new donors to support the replenishment.
These two high-level and robust pledge announcements highlight that both the Canadian and Japanese governments will remain strong leaders in the fight against the three diseases. In addition to these commitments to the Global Fund, the U.S. government has demonstrated steadfast leadership in global health, serving as the largest contributor to the Global Fund and through U.S. bilateral programs such as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and the President’s Malaria Initiative.