PRESS CONFERENCE BY GLOBAL FUND TO FIGHT AIDS

PRESS CONFERENCE BY GLOBAL FUND TO FIGHT AIDS

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria today appealed to Member States of the United NationsGeneral Assembly to support the group’s efforts at raising an additional $3 billion in funding needed by 2004 to launch a “massive counterattack” against HIV/AIDS.

“The global response has been woefully small, thus far, but we are poised at that moment in history where the massive counterattack against HIV/AIDS can now take place”, Dr. Richard Feachem, the Global Fund’s Executive Director told correspondents at a Headquarters press conference this morning.

The Global Fund, an independent, public-private partnership based in Geneva, was founded in January 2002 to attract and disburse new resources for the global fight against three diseases.

Dr. Feachem said international donors -– including 40 countries, major foundations, and private donors -- have pledged $4.7 billion to the Global Fund.  “It is not enough but it is a huge step forward from where we were two years ago”, he said.

Asked from where the Global Fund expected to raise the additional $3 billion it was seeking from donors by 2004, Dr. Feachem said the Fund hoped to receive $1 billion from the United States, $1 billion from Europe, and $1 billion from others, including Japan, Canada, oil-rich States, Singapore, the Republic of Korea and Taiwan.

Dr. Feachem said the additional funding was critical to sustain momentum in AIDS prevention and treatment and to support the proposals it was receiving.

Dr. Feachem said the Global Fund was encouraged by the improvement in leadership exhibited by both governments and civil society in launching HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment initiatives during the last two years, saying such leadership provided the necessary backdrop to launch an effective counterattack against the disease.

Dr. Feachem said the increase in affordability of drugs and technologies was another encouraging development.  He noted drug treatment two years ago cost as much as $20,000 per year and involved taking 25 tablets per day.  Today, it cost $300 annually and involved taking three tablets per day.

“This is a revolution in the availability of an affordable technology on the treatment side of the equation”, he said.

The Global Fund has also actively sought private sector involvement -- from corporations, foundations and individuals -– in its financing initiatives for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment.

“The private sector is absolutely committed to lend our shoulders to this fight”, said Rajat Gupta, Managing Director of McKinsey and Company and a member of the Fund’s Board, adding the private sector has played an active role in helping the Global Fund establish itself as an effective financing entity for HIV/AIDS programmes.

Mr. Gupta stressed the Global Fund’s success in fundraising rested largely on its ability to establish itself as a “brand name”, and said the Fund was working actively with publicists to lead that effort.

“The Global Fund needs to establish itself as a global brand in order to be able to mobilize resources not only from governments, but from individuals”, said Mr. Gupta, noting it was critical to tap the potential of individual donors, who he said generally make up 75 to 80 per cent of philanthropic contributions.

Mr. Gupta noted corporations would not make direct donations to the Global Fund, but would contribute to the Fund’s efforts in other ways, including innovative fundraising schemes that would allow individual contributions through credit card, hotel billing, and other “high-volume” transactions that would offer consumers the option to contribute a portion of these transactions to the Global Fund.

Dr. Feachem said “co-investment” with the private sector involved discussions with a number of corporations in South Africa, including Daimler Chrysler, Anglo-American Mining and Heineken, and several companies in India, to expand their HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programmes for workers to include services for communities.

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