AFP, Montreal :
Donors pledged nearly $13 billion on Saturday in the fight to eradicate AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria by 2030, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced at an international conference.
“It is my great honor to announce that for the fifth replenishment conference for the Global Fund to end AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, we have reached our goal together,” he said at the close of the donors’ meeting.
“We have raised almost $13 billion, and in doing so, we have saved eight million lives.”
Trudeau hosted the conference, which was attended by several heads of states as well as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, and pop singer Bono-who co-founded the nonprofit group ONE, which works to reduce poverty and disease in Africa.
The U2 frontman praised world leaders for coming together to make “the single largest multilateral investment in a global health project in human history.”
“We can deliver a knock-out punch to three of the deadliest killers of our time, and today’s accomplishment makes that possible,” he said.
Created as a public-private initiative, the Global Fund has so far spent $30 billion on programs to fight the three deadly diseases around the world, with most going to Africa.
It has been credited with helping to save 22 million lives and preventing 300 million infections over the past decade as it pursues a UN target of eradicating AIDS by 2030 and the other diseases even sooner.
But it needed to raise another $13 billion to fund its operations over the next three years through 2019.
The United States, which has provided nearly a third of the total funding so far, pledged an additional $4.3 billion.
The second-largest donor, Britain, pledged $1.4 billion, followed by France ($1.2 billion), Germany ($900 million), Japan ($800 million) and Canada ($600 million).
“We have the knowledge and tools to end HIV, TB and malaria by 2030,” Ban said. “Let us work together to make this world healthier and better. I count on your strong commitment and leadership.”
