Increased demand from developing countries could potentially raise this figure to US$8 billion, the Fund said in a release following the Board meeting in Geneva.
 
"A Global Fund of US$6-8 billion per year is an inspiring challenge to the entire Global Fund community - to the people in more than 130 countries who are doing the hard work of saving lives, to their technical partners, and to funders who provide the financing to make that work possible," said Michel Kazatchkine, Executive Director of the Global Fund. "Let us all work together toward this goal."
 
According to him: "The Board's vision of tripling or even quadrupling the size of the Global Fund is a strong vote of confidence for our work. Programmes we support are currently saving 3,000 lives per day. The increase in funding will allow the world to do much, much more, to reach G8 and UN goals like providing AIDS treatment to all who need it, having every African child sleep under a bed net, and cutting the death toll of TB in half."
 
The board, which is evenly divided between donors and beneficiaries, called on stakeholders to encourage and mobilise strong demand for Global Fund financing.
 
It noted that raising US$6-8 billion per year would require significant additional contributions from new and existing public and private sources, as well as innovative financing mechanisms such as UNITAID, Global Fund Debt Conversion and Product (RED), and called on stakeholders to contribute to this effort.
 
Donors are scheduled to meet in Berlin, Germany, in September to secure initial pledges of funding for the period 2008 - 2010.
 
Created five years ago, 80 percent of the Global Fund's resources have so far come from the G8 countries. While these countries are expected to provide a dominant share of the Fund's resource needs, the replenishment conference in Berlin is also expected to draw pledges from new donor countries.
 
Since its creation, the Fund has grown to become the dominant financier of programmes to fight AIDS, TB and malaria, with US$10.4 billion in firm pledges and commitments of US$7.1 billion for programmes in 136 countries.
 
The three diseases kill more than six million people worldwide yearly, especially in developing countries.
 
So far, programmes supported by the Global Fund have averted 1.7 million deaths, through providing AIDS treatment for 770,000 people, TB treatment for two million people, effective medicines for 23 million cases of malaria and distributing bed nets to 18 million families in Africa and beyond. 27 April 2007 - PANA
 
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