Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria

The Global Fund is a unique global public/private partnership dedicated to attracting and disbursing additional resources to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. This partnership between governments, civil society, the private sector and affected communities represents a new approach to international health financing. The Global Fund works in close collaboration with other bilateral and multilateral organizations to supplement existing efforts dealing with the three diseases.

The Global Fund was established in 2002 and has to date approved grants for more than 460 programs in 136 countries with a total commitment of US$ 6.6 billion. As of June 2006, 544,000 people have begun antiretroviral (ARV) treatment through Global Fund-supported programs, a more than 40 percent increase over six months earlier. Taken together, Global Fund-supported programs to combat malaria have distributed to 11.3 million insecticide-treated bed nets by June, 2006. In addition, tuberculosis programs have detected and treated more than 1.4 million TB cases under DOTS, the internationally-approved TB control strategy.

To learn more, visit www.theglobalfund.org

In order to coordinate and increase the participation of companies across industry sectors interested in the Global Fund, the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria (GBC) has been appointed as the Focal Point for the Private Sector Delegation to the Global Fund Board. In this role, GBC aims to facilitate broad-based resource mobilization, facilitate private sector operational involvement through partnerships in program implementation, advance policies affecting the private sector, and bring private sector expertise, including technical and managerial, to bear on Global Fund operations and organization. GBC is also eager to support business engagement with the Fund at the country level by facilitating various co-investment projects and working with the Country Coordinating Mechanisms — the multi-sectoral in-country unit of the Global Fund that oversees grant submissions and implementation.

Mr. Rajat Gupta of McKinsey, Dr. Brian Brink of Anglo-American and Barbara Bulc of GBC Geneva currently represent the private sector on the Global Fund Board of Directors. McKinsey and Anglo-American are active GBC member companies.

To view information on the private sector activities with the Global Fund, see the Private Sector Delegation e-Newsletter, produced by GBC.

Global Alliance for TB Drug Development

The Global Alliance for TB Drug Development (TB Alliance) is a not-for-profit, product development partnership accelerating the discovery and/or development of affordable, new, anti-TB drugs that will shorten treatment, be effective against drug resistant strains, are appropriate for patients with HIV-TB co-infection, and improve treatment of latent infection. Working with public and private partners world wide, it is leading the development of the first, most comprehensive portfolio of TB drug candidates in decades. The TB Alliance operates with the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DGIS), and Irish Aid.

For more information, visit www.tballiance.org

Contact:
Al Hinman Communications Director
Global Alliance for TB Drug Development
212.227.7540 x209

Stop TB Partnership

The Stop TB Partnership comprises a network of international organizations, countries, donors from the public and private sectors, governmental and nongovernmental organizations and individuals that have expressed an interest in working together to realize the goal of eliminating TB as a public health problem and, ultimately, to obtain a world free of TB.

The Stop TB Initiative was established following the meeting of the First ad hoc Committee on the Tuberculosis Epidemic held in London in March 1998. The Stop TB Initiative produced the Amsterdam Declaration to Stop TB in March 2000, a defining moment in the restructuring of global efforts to control TB, which called for action from ministerial delegations of 20 countries with the highest burden of TB. The World Health Assembly the same year (2000) endorsed the establishment of a Global Partnership to Stop TB and two targets for 2005: to diagnose 70% of all people with infectious TB, and to cure 85% of those diagnosed.

Partners came together at the First Stop TB Partners' Forum held in Washington D.C. in October 2001 to launch the Global Plan to Stop TB - the overarching framework of the Stop TB Partnership's combined actions. The Second Stop TB Partners' Forum, held in New Delhi in March 2004, produced the New Delhi Pledge which reaffirmed ministerial commitments to meet the 2005 targets and to frame a second global plan for guiding Partnership efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals targets for TB by 2015.

From humble beginnings, the original Stop TB Initiative has evolved into a broad Global Partnership to Stop TB. The Partnership involves all those organizations and individuals committed to short- and long-term measures required to control and eventually eliminate TB as a global public health problem. Partners have coalesced into Working Groups to accelerate progress in seven specific areas: DOTS Expansion, TB/HIV, MDR-TB, New TB Drugs, New TB Vaccines, New TB Diagnostics, and Advocacy, Communications and Social Mobilization. These mechanisms have enabled the Global Partnership to Stop TB to expand, carry forward work plans, and support countries in their efforts to accelerate action against TB, as called for in the Amsterdam Declaration to Stop TB.

To learn more, visit www.stoptb.org

The Stop TB Partnership launched the second Global Plan to Stop TB, 2006-2015 on January 27, 2006 in Davos (at the World Economic Forum) and, simultaneously, at several other locations around the world. The Davos launch included President Obasanjo of Nigeria, Chancellor Gordon Brown of the UK, Bill Gates, and the Stop TB Partnership Executive Secretary Marcos Espinal.

To learn more about the Global Plan, visit www.stoptb.org/globalplan

Roll Back Malaria

To provide a coordinated global approach to fighting malaria, the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership was launched in 1998 by the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank. The RBM Partnership's goal is to halve the burden of malaria by 2010.

Controlling malaria will contribute significantly to the United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals, which 192 UN Member States have pledged to achieve by 2015. Beyond reducing the disease burden, a successful fight against malaria will have far-reaching impact on child mortality, maternal health, and poverty, which in turn may increase global stability.

The RBM Partnership has grown rapidly since its launch and is now made up of a wide range of partners — including malaria-endemic countries, their bilateral and multilateral development partners, the private sector, nongovernmental and community-based organizations, foundations, and research and academic institutions — who bring a formidable assembly of expertise, infrastructure and funds into the fight against the disease.

The RBM Partnership's strength lies in its ability to form effective partnerships both globally and nationally. Partners are working together to scale up malaria-control efforts at country level, coordinating their activities to avoid duplication and fragmentation and to ensure optimal use of resources. A key role of the RBM Partnership is to lead continuing advocacy campaigns to raise awareness of malaria at the global, regional, national and community levels, thus keeping malaria high on the development agenda, mobilizing resources for malaria control and for research into new and more effective tools, and ensuring that vulnerable individuals are key participants in rolling back malaria.

To learn more, visit www.rollbackmalaria.org