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Troubling message for global health at Global Financing Facility replenishment

OSLO, Norway — Donor governments and key partners today pledged US$1 billion at the replenishment conference for the World Bank’s Global Financing Facility, which aims to partner with 50 low-income countries to prevent more than 5 million mothers and children from dying from preventable conditions. Organizers had set a target of US$2 billion. The ONE Campaign, the international non-profit organization co-founded by U2 lead singer Bono to end extreme poverty and preventable disease, issued the following reaction to the replenishment conference:

From Gayle Smith, the president and CEO of The ONE Campaign:

“Any new investment in global health is certainly welcome, but the dangerous complacency displayed by some donor governments in Oslo this week is alarming. We’ve made tremendous progress on global health over the last two decades, but we’ve got to keep at it. For all of the progress we’ve made over the last two decades, the world is still far off course in most areas of global health in the places most in need. Clinging to past gains will not be enough to overcome the remaining challenges around infectious diseases, let alone accelerate progress toward universal health coverage. World leaders must not be complacent.

“The next decade of health financing can’t look like the last. The Global Financing Facility is the kind of innovation that should lead global health thinking, particularly the careful alignment with the unique health priorities of partner countries.

“We are grateful to those governments who made pledges, but hope this conference will be followed by additional investments from donor governments. We hope and expect those same governments will approach the upcoming replenishments of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, and Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, with more earnest and robust commitments to global health.”

ONE is a global movement campaigning to end extreme poverty and preventable disease by 2030 so that everyone, everywhere can lead a life of dignity and opportunity.