Partnership Forum Focuses on Strategy
07 May 2015
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia – Partners in global health gathered here today to participate in consultations about the strategy the Global Fund partnership should implement to best accelerate the end of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria as epidemics and to contribute to building resilient health systems.
The Partnership Forum, bringing together more than 130 participants, is engaging wide-ranging discussions that focus on developing the Global Fund’s Strategy for 2017-2021, and will consider how best to take advantage of recent scientific advances and growing experience in implementation to prevent new infections and treat those affected by HIV, TB and malaria.
“This is part of a broad consultative process to shape our future and devise our strategy,” said Norbert Hauser, Chair of the Board of the Global Fund. “As a partnership, we take all views and voices into consideration, and we are united in our passion to see a world where everyone is healthy, fulfilling their full potential, free of HIV, TB and malaria.”
Participants in the forum are sharing their thinking on many topics to help the partnership achieve these goals while creating sustainable funding mechanisms, supporting resilient health systems and contributing to healthy communities and countries.
“We are building on an existing strategy, and giving careful consideration to what we hear from partners,” said Anita Asiimwe, Vice-Chair of the Board’s Strategy, Investment and Impact Committee, which is steering the strategy development process. “We need everyone’s engagement to make it the most effective strategy.”
This year’s Partnership Forum, including additional meetings in Bangkok, Thailand and in Latin America, are an opportunity for a broad consultative process. Additional consultation opportunities will also be held alongside meetings hosted by WHO, UNAIDS, PMNCH and the StopTB Partnership. The Global Fund has also launched an e-Forum to enable people who cannot make it to these meetings to share their views online.
The current “Global Fund Strategy 2012-2016: Investing for Impact” was developed through a similar participatory process, and has guided the Global Fund to deliver significant results. At the end of 2014, programs supported by the partnership had put 7.3 million people on antiretroviral therapy for HIV, tested and treated 12.3 million people for TB, and distributed 450 million insecticide-treated nets to protect families against malaria.
With the new strategy, the Global Fund will be looking to the future, asking how the partnership can achieve more impact and progress for people affected by HIV, TB and malaria.