UN Summit: Fill the Funding Gap

The 2008 New York UN Summit began at a very difficult time, just as the scale and scope of the global credit crisis first started becoming clear. But thanks in small part to more than 50,000 ONE members demanding their leaders not forget developing nations, the food crisis stayed on the agenda and a variety of donors made significant commitments on agriculture, education, and health.

Agriculture: Private sector donors and several countries, including Turkey and China, made new commitments to agriculture. The total commitment for agriculture and food security initiatives pledged at the summit was $1.6 billion. This includes funding for emergency food assistance, nutrition programs, and agricultural initiatives. Additional funding is still needed for vital long-term agricultural projects to increase food security and economic productivity in the developing world.

Education: The "Class of 2015" Partnership was launched with the goal of enrolling 15 million more children in school over the next three years, leading towards the goal of universal primary education by 2015. This effort was led by new commitments of $3 billion from the World Bank, $500 million from Saudi Arabia, $450 million from Australia, and $226 million from Spain.

Malaria: A broad range of donors committed to a new ambitious business plan intended to bring malaria deaths close to zero by 2015. In doing so, a Global Malaria Action Plan was launched, which lays out a three-stage plan to achieve this goal. Fully financing the plan will be critical to its success - some commitments made towards that plan include:

• The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria is hoping to approve the largest round of grants for malaria yet - they have submitted $1.6 billion in malaria grants for its Board to approve in November which would work to distribute 100 million bed nets.

• $1.1 billion from the World Bank to increase anti-malaria programs in Africa.

• The Gates Foundation pledged $168 million for malaria vaccine research.

• £40 million from the UK for the Affordable Medicines Facility for Malaria.