STATEMENT BY
PROFESSOR RICHARD G A FEACHEM
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
THE GLOBAL FUND TO FIGHT AIDS, TUBERCULOSIS AND MALARIA
As the Global Fund enters its fifth year, our extended family of staff, partners, communities, supporters, and friends can celebrate our collective success in building an innovative organization that is bringing hope and life to millions of children, women and men in all parts of the world. I am honoured to have served as the founding Executive Director of this organization, and confident that what we have built together is strong and sustainable. In July this year, I will have served four years as Executive Director of the Global Fund. After careful consideration, I have decided not to seek a full further term.
Ensuring the continuity of leadership of the Global Fund is of the utmost importance, and I am committed to a smooth transition which protects and enhances the credibility of the Global Fund, and models the values and principles for which we stand. Accordingly, I have expressed to our Board Chair, Dr Carol Jacobs, my availability to continue to serve as Executive Director to allow sufficient time for an adequate and orderly transition period.
The reasons for this decision are both professional and personal. On the professional side, as many of you will know, I was lent to the Global Fund by the University of California (UC). While UC has been very gracious in extending this arrangement beyond the usual time limits, I look forward to returning next year to my professorships at San Francisco and Berkeley, and to the Institute for Global Health and the Global Health Sciences Initiative. On the personal side, Neelam and I have greatly enjoyed our time in Geneva, but home for us is San Francisco, and we have family and friends there with whom we would like to spend more time.
As I reflect on the life of the Global Fund over the past four years, I clearly remember my first visit in 2002. In those days we were a dozen dedicated, but hopelessly overworked, individuals sitting in a few crowded rooms at Varembe. Today, we are 200 highly motivated men and women from all corners of the globe, still overworked, but occupying modern and attractive offices. In less than five years, working together, we have taken a radical new idea - to build a truly different public-private partnership to fight the pandemics of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria - and turned it into an organization with almost US$9 billion in assets, supporting 386 programmes in 130 countries. This is a rapid scale-up by any standards, and has caused stresses and strains for our staff and our partners.
Earlier this week, we disbursed our two billionth dollar to a malaria programme in Rwanda. Under our performance-based disbursement system, the credit for this achievement goes to the governments, NGOs and faith-based organizations, who have made good use of the two billion dollars to prevent and treat infection, and to provide care and support for orphans and adults.
When the history of the Global Fund is written, we will be judged not by the innovation of our model, but by the role we played in accelerating the demise of these three deadly pandemics. While appreciating its achievements, the Global Fund cannot afford to be complacent. Much work remains to be done, and the year ahead is critical. The Global Fund must consider how to adapt and improve its ways of doing business and develop a clear strategy to ensure the effectiveness of its model going forward. This process is underway, and will provide a blueprint for the Global Fund’s operations over the next four years. The Global Fund must ensure increased and sustainable funding flows from donors, corporations, foundations and individuals. The RED campaign, launched this week in London, enrols major corporations and their customers into our collective fight, and must be expanded to include more corporate partners in more markets. The Airline Solidarity Levy and International Finance Facility, announced by President Jacques Chirac, Chancellor Gordon Brown, and others in Paris on February 28, require significant effort to translate visionary leadership into a tangible flow of funds. Of immediate importance is the necessity to ensure full funding and a smooth launch of our next round of grant applications, Round 6, in 2006.
I am looking forward to working with all of you in the coming months on these important goals, and I will continue to provide every ounce of my passion and commitment to the Global Fund until the day that I hand over to my successor. Leading the Global Fund has been a unique privilege and honour. In my 40 years of work in development and global health, nothing rivals the rewards and challenges of this role. I thank you all for providing me with this opportunity, for which I will always be grateful. I am humbled and inspired by the dedication and commitment of the many exceptional women and men whom I have had the pleasure of meeting during my visits around the world. I will continue to treasure the friendship of our extended family.
GENEVA, 3 MARCH 2006
