SA is rolling out the red carpet for one of the world’s largest HIV/Aids, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria funders, the Global Fund, as it looks to raise more than $18bn (R330bn) to combat the scourges.
That includes granting diplomatic privileges to the entity’s delegation when it visits SA later this year.
The replenishment round comes as aid from the US dries up, with Washington tightening its belt and becoming increasingly inward-looking.
US President Donald Trump’s withdrawal of President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) support to SA is estimated to lead to 601,000 HIV-related deaths and 501,000 new infections in the next 10 years if alternative support is not found.
This is according to a research article co-authored by the University of Cape Town’s Linda-Gail Bekker and published in Annals of Medicine, a peer-reviewed medical journal, and repeated in an editorial in the SA Medical Journal in March.
The Geneva-based Global Fund is replenishing its coffers, with a target of raising $18bn to save about 23-million lives over the next three years. About $2bn of this is expected to be raised from private donors.
No stone unturned
The fund’s eighth replenishment will be co-hosted virtually by the UK and SA as part of its G20 presidency. To this end, SA is leaving no stone unturned in laying out the red carpet for the Global Fund delegation. Its privileges include immunity from arrest and exemption from immigration restrictions.
“The Global Fund, its property, funds and assets, wherever located and whomsoever held, shall be immune from every form of legal process, except insofar as in a particular case the Global Fund has expressly waived its immunity,” reads a notice from the department of international relations & co-operation.
“The archives of the Global Fund, and all papers and documents in whatever form, and materials being sent to or from the Global Fund, held by the Global Fund, or belonging to it, wherever located and by whomever held, shall be inviolable.”
The fund rates SA as an important cog in its operations. “Beyond the private sector, SA has been an active participant in Global Fund governance and a donor to the fund. In addition, SA is one of the few countries that is currently meeting the 2001 Abuja Declaration’s target of allocating at least 15% of the government’s budget to the health sector,” it told Business Day.
The Global Fund, founded in the early 2000s, said it and the co-hosts have not yet reached a decision regarding the exact timing of the “high level” pledging event.
“This is a moment of reckoning in the fight against HIV, TB and malaria. The Global Fund’s eighth replenishment is an opportunity to accelerate efforts towards ending the three diseases as public health threats and saving millions of lives,” the fund said.
“Many donors are facing financial constraints and difficult decisions over competing priorities this year. But our donors have been very reliable over the years. They remain committed to global health and supportive of the Global Fund.”
In April the fund received a first pledge to its eighth replenishment campaign from the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation. Its pledge of $150m was a fivefold increase from its previous contribution.
The entity secured a record $15.7bn in the seventh replenishment round.
“If $18bn is raised [in the eighth replenishment] we anticipate that about one third of this target — $6bn — would be directed by countries towards strengthening and integrating health and community systems, to underpin the fight against the three diseases and enhance pandemic preparedness,” it said.
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