Bono, Bill Gates, and heads of state convened in eastern France for the Sixth Replenishment of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which slightly exceeded its aim of raising $14bn from donors for the next three years. According to a Devex report, it says the 15% increase on its last replenishment will allow it to save 16m lives between 2021 and 2023.
Last year, 770,000 people died from HIV-related illnesses. In 2017, 1.6m died from TB (including 300,000 among those with HIV) and 435,000 died from malaria. Médecins Sans Frontières warned this week that donor and domestic funding for HIV programmes dropped in 2018 for the first time in more than a decade, while the funding gap for TB widened to $3.5bn per year.
President Emmanuel Macron announced that France, as well as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, would increase their contributions by 15%. They joined others, such as the EU, Germany, and Canada, that had already announced increases.
US President Donald Trump has proposed around $400m less than the fund hoped, as well as proposing an end to the US commitment to provide one-third of its overall funding. The report says Congress, which controls the money, rejected that however, with the Senate and House of Representatives putting forward Bills, not yet passed, with $1.56bn per year for the fund — a more than 15% increase on the current cycle.
[link url="https://www.devex.com/news/q-a-key-issues-at-the-global-fund-replenishment-95795"]Devex report[/link]
[link url="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/on-behalf-of-the-private-sector-red-increases-global-fund-replenishment-pledge-by-50-commits-to-generating-usd-150-million-to-fight-aids-over-the-coming-three-years-300936385.html"]RED material[/link]