CategoriesUncategorized

On 14th February – Valentine’s Day, communities and civil society organizations in over 45 countries sent “love letters” to embassies and high commissions of donor countries to appreciate their support to the Global Fund.  Since its establishment in 2002, the Global Fund has disbursed a total of over US$ 40.2 billion and saved over 27 million lives affected by the three epidemics.

marchfet1
Rosemary Mburu presented a letter and roses to the EU Commission in Kenya
Photo Credit: GFAN Africa
march2fet
Angela and Jacqueline presented a letter and roses to H.E. Mrs Aline Kuster-Menager, Ambassador of France to Kenya Photo Credit: GFAN Africa

 

march3fet
Representatives of Uganda Network of Young People Living with HIV presented flowers and a thank you letter to the Ambassador of Sweden to Uganda H.E. Per Lindgarde
Photo Credit: GFAN Africa

 

The Valentine’s day campaign was coordinated by GFAN Asia Pacific. Countries presented thank you letters and flowers to Embassies, High Commissions and Governments for their contributions to the Global Fund while urging them to contribute more during the 2019 6th replenishment. Special thank you letters were presented to the Embassies of Ireland to the India High Commissions. We thanked Ireland for pledging towards this year’s replenishment and appreciated India for hosting the pre-replenishment conference in February.  13 countries in Africa participated in this very successful campaign.

The 6th Replenishment of the Global Fund will take place on 10th October in Lyon, France. It will be another opportunity for Global Fund donors and implementing countries to demonstrate their continued commitment in scaling up work to defeat HIV/AIDS, TB & Malaria.

A lot of progress has been made, yet, the world is not on track to end HIV, TB and malaria as epidemics by 2030. The Global Fund fundraising target of US$14 billion, for the next three-year cycle (2020-2022), is significantly lower than the estimate in the GFAN Report “Get Back on Track” of US$16.8 – US$18 billion. There is huge concern that the US$14 billion target will only maintain current levels of programming and will not enable us to step up the fight!

GFAN Africa and health advocates, strongly call on governments and donors to: demonstrate their political will by making early and increased pledges for the 6th replenishment as well as fulfilling their previous commitments. . An increased and fully funded replenishment will enable the Global Fund to help countries accelerate progress toward universal health coverage. Health advocates are also asking African governments to commit 5% of their GDP towards health to ensure successful, life-saving interventions.