During May 10-11th in Geneva, the 26th Global Fund board meeting took place and Salud por Derecho formed part of the Developed Country NGO Delegation, one of the three civil society delegations that has a seat at the Board.
This meeting was a very important step for the revitalizing of the Global Fund as it concluded with a broad agreement to open a new financing opportunity for programs in 2012. In the coming months, it will be decided how to invest the $1.6 billion in funding available that the Global Fund expects to have in the next years. After the dramatic news in November 2011 that the Fund was facing severe challenges and that it would not be able to finance new programs until 2014 , this is obviously good news. However, while this is an important step in the right direction, there is still much more money needed to be pledged in order to sustain and increase current efforts. Read more about what took place at the Global Fund board meeting here.