The United Nations-backed Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and
Malaria, has agreed to treble its spending by 2010 to keep up with demand for its financing that is projected to rise around the world, especially in developing countries.
The Fund is seeking between $6 billion and $8 billion each year from 2008 to 2010, depending on the level of demand in the world's poorest countries.
Global Funds Executive Director, Dr. Michel Kazatchkine, described the new projected spending as an inspiring challenge to both donors and the people who work on Fund-backed projects in more than 130 nations.
He said that The Board's vision of tripling or even quadrupling the size of the
Global Fund is a strong vote of confidence for our work. He said programmes supported by the Global Fund Programmes are currently saving up to3, 000 lives per day.
Dr Kazatchkine, said that The increase in funding will allow the world to do much, much more, to reach the G-8 and UN goals like providing AIDS treatment to all who need it, having every African child sleep under a bed net, and cutting the death toll of TB in half.
Donors will meet in Berlin in September to secure initial funding pledges for the 2008-2010 period.
Set up in 2002 on the initiative of then Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the Global Fund is a public-private partnership that has committed $7.1 billion so far to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in 136 countries. The three diseases kill more than 6 million people a year, and that number is growing.
