Secretary-General Appoints Ray Chambers of United States as Special Envoy

 

for Malaria, Financing of Health-Related Millennium Development Goals

 

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced today the appointment of Ray Chambers of the United States as his Special Envoy for Malaria and for the Financing of the Health-Related Millennium Development Goals.

Mr. Chambers has served as the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Malaria since February 2008.  During that time, visibility, awareness, and funding for malaria have increased exponentially, with more than $4 billion raised, over 400 million mosquito nets distributed and millions of treatment courses administered.  Yet, malaria continues to kill an African child every minute.  With a further push, deaths can be brought down to near zero by the end of 2015.  One of the key challenges is insufficient funding to meet health goals in many countries.

In his new capacity and focus on financing, Mr. Chambers will collaborate with United Nations agencies, funds and programmes to promote and secure increased investment by the public and private sectors to achieve the health-related Millennium Development Goals of child and maternal mortality, HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other diseases by the end of December 2015, the internationally agreed deadline for achieving the Goals.

Mr. Chambers, a philanthropist, is the founding Chairman of the Points of Light Foundation, co-founder of America’s Promise—The Alliance for Youth and co-founder of Malaria No More.  He has served as one of the Secretary-General’s Millennium Development Goals Advocates since 2010.  In 2012, Mr. Chambers founded the Millennium Development Goals Health Alliance and in January 2013, he joined the Board of Directors of GBCHealth as Co-Chair.  He previously served as Chairman of the Millennium Promise Alliance and as Chairman of Wesray Capital Corporation, which he co-founded.

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For information media • not an official record