Opinion pieces recognize Global Fund anniversary

Last week, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria celebrated its 10-year anniversary. The following are summaries of two opinion pieces written in recognition of this milestone.

• Joanne Carter, Huffington Post: Carter, executive director of RESULTS/RESULTS Educational Fund and Global Fund board representative for the Developed Country NGO Delegations, writes, "The last 10 years, the Global Fund has proved to be one of the most successful efforts in the history of public health. Millions of lives have been saved in some 150 countries. But projected funding shortfalls threaten this progress." She calls for the U.S. to host "an emergency donor conference to mobilize the resources needed to reverse the situation and provide for a new funding opportunity in 2012 and 2013." She adds, "The Global Fund has a decade-long track record of impact and innovation in the fight against AIDS, TB, and malaria, but these diseases won't wait around for the world to sort out its financial challenges. Now, if we don't advance against these epidemics, we're now moving backwards, and we don't want that to happen" (Carter, 1/27).
• Nancy Mahon and Kevin Robert Frost, Huffington Post: "Economic uncertainty and donor skittishness have combined to threaten the future of the Global Fund. For the first time since 2002, the Fund has had to cancel any new grant making due to a lack of resources. … On top of this, news of a transition in leadership at the Global Fund has created anxiety where none is required," Mahon, executive director of the MAC AIDS Fund, and Frost, chief executive officer of amfAR (The Foundation for AIDS Research), write, adding, "This couldn't come at a worse time. Recent science has shown us that we have the power to end the AIDS epidemic. ... Ending the AIDS epidemic is no longer a hopeful metaphor -- it is a choice. Do we begin to end this disease now, or do we blithely pass it on to future generations?" They call on readers to support the Global Fund with a reminder "that the failure of the Global Fund will be a collective failure of humanity to bring an end to a global epidemic that has already killed 30 million people worldwide" (Mahon/Frost, 1/30).