Date: 08 October 2013
Greetings friends, honorable deputy president, minister of health, distinguished colleagues and friends.
It’s a great privilege to be with you even remotely, to congratulate south Africa, on the 307 million dollar award to fight HIV, TB and malaria. The largest single award the global fund has been privileged to partner with South Africa to provide, to support your national health program.
I want to congratulate in particular the country coordinating mechanism that steered this through a process that was rapid and effective and a great demonstration of how well the country coordinating mechanism is working together.
We’re very excited about this 307 million dollar grant because it covers several areas and because it aligns with the national strategy in ways that we hadn’t as well in the past. Again, a tribute to the people of South Africa, the country coordinating mechanism, and the great leadership of the government, steering the fight against HIV, TB and malaria with a very strong national strategy, and also reflecting our new approach to funding which aligns more and more with the priorities of the country, which is easy to do in a place like South Africa that has such strong leadership.
We’re particularly pleased that the TB program is 25% of the TB money provided by the Global Fund in this interim funding period, really recognizing the importance of your leadership in the fight against TB, but also the complexities of TB in all of southern Africa. Some of these innovative approaches you’re taking, particularly with dealing with marginalized populations in prisons is very exciting to us. The fact that you’re also tying closely HIV and TB which of course is 1 disease in your part of the world, is also a great demonstration of the leadership and vision that South Africa is providing. On the HIV front we’re very delighted that for the first time the Global Fund resources are supporting your national program to support those men who have sex with men and sex workers, key affected populations with very high rates but who often go left behind in national strategies. We hope others in your region and actually around the world follow this great example to deal with sex workers and men who have sex with men, and I’m very much looking forward to being with you all in person next time in December around the Icasa meeting when you launch your national sex worker program, demonstrating how important it is for all of us how you’re looking in innovative and creative ways to deal with those most affected by the disease and left behind.
We’re also excited about your efforts to deal with young women who are so deeply affected by HIV, TB and other diseases in sub Saharan Africa. Now that the money’s been awarded of course you’ll do what you do best which is get results. And we at the Global Fund look forward to continuing to be your partner and servant as you do that.
We know that you will come up with great approaches; innovative approaches, as you have, by submitting this grant in the implementation, and we all look forward to learning from you. Thank you again for your leadership, thank you again for allowing us to be your partner and servant and I look forward to seeing you all in December.