The head of the Global Fund to fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria on Tuesday made the case for African philanthropists to contribute to the organisation, saying their money could catalyse access to new tools to fight the killer diseases.
While SA billionaires such as African Rainbow Minerals founder Patrice Motsepe and PSG founder Jannie Mouton provide money to various philanthropic endeavours, their largesse is largely directed at education, entrepreneurship and poverty alleviation.
“There are many needs in Africa … [but] the return on investing in health is extremely high,” said Global Fund executive director Peter Sands. For example, investing in malaria programmes not only saved lives, but also improved educational attainment and workforce productivity, he said on the sidelines of the World Health Summit in Berlin.
Unlike governments, private sector and philanthropic donors to the Global Fund can earmark their contributions for specific causes, said Sands.
There are many needs in Africa … [but] the return on investing in health is extremely high.
— Peter Sands
Global Fund executive director
For example, pledges from the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) have played a critical role in the Global Fund’s efforts to accelerate access to lenacapavir, the twice-yearly HIV prevention injection. SA is a long-standing Global Fund recipient and intends to use a portion of its present grant to fund the rollout of lenacapavir, slated for early next year.
Greater philanthropic contributions could widen access to lenacapavir, which had the potential to change the trajectory of SA’s HIV epidemic, said Sands. SA has the world’s worst HIV epidemic, with an estimated 8-million people living with the disease. There were about 178,000 new infections in the year to mid-2024, according to the Thembisa model.
“This is a very powerful tool. If you use it at a small scale, you protect individuals, but if you use it at a big scale, you change the nature of the pandemic,” said Sands.
SA will, with the UK, co-host the Global Fund’s eighth replenishment conference on the eve of the Group of 20 leaders summit in November. The Global Fund said earlier this year that it aimed to raise $18bn for its next three-year grant cycle, a figure it said would enable it to save 23-million lives in 2027-29.
Recent philanthropic pledges to the Global Fund include $912m from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and $50m from the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation. Several countries have also made pledges, including World Health Summit host Germany, which announced earlier this week that it would provide €1bn. Most pledges are expected shortly before or during the replenishment conference.
Sands warned that without strong donor support, the Global Fund would be unable to sustain the hard-won gains it has helped achieve against Aids, TB and malaria over the past 20 years.
Lifeline
“Given recent disruptions in [global] health financing, we are, in many cases, literally a lifeline for saving lives and continuing progress against the three diseases. We’re [also] the largest multilateral investor in health systems,” he said.
Earlier this year the Global Fund was forced to cut $1.4bn in grants it had already awarded to recipient countries, including SA, which faced a 16% reduction to its R8.5bn grant, which fell to R7.1bn.
The cuts were triggered by the Trump administration’s abrupt reduction in foreign aid, compounding a retreat by many European countries that have prioritised domestic spending over overseas development assistance. The US has historically been the single largest donor to the Global Fund.
Kahn’s travel to the World Health Summit was sponsored by Vital Strategies.
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