Prime Minister Kishida’s Attendance at the Global Fund’s Seventh Replenishment Conference
On September 21, commencing at 4:00 p.m. (local time; September 22, 5:00 a.m., Japan time), for approximately 70 minutes, Mr. KISHIDA Fumio, Prime Minister of Japan, attended the Global Fund's Seventh Replenishment Conference hosted by the Honorable Joseph R. Biden Jr., President of the United States of America, during his visit to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly. The overview is as follows. The conference was attended by more than 300 people from various governments, private companies, private foundations and the civil society, including Prime Minister Kishida, President Biden, H.E. Mr. Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic, Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, H.E. Mr. Olaf Scholz, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, H.E. Dr. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, as well as Mr. Bill Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
1. At the conference, Prime Minister Kishida noted the need for all stakeholders of the international community, including donors, implementing countries, private companies and the civil society, to mobilize all efforts to achieve the goal of ending the three major infectious diseases (HIV, tuberculosis and malaria) by 2030.
2. Prime Minister Kishida also stated that strengthening health systems under the initiative of the Global Fund will lead to better preparedness for future pandemics and contribute to achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC). He also stressed the need for all parties to work together to accelerate such efforts.
3. In light of these ideas, Prime Minister Kishida announced that Japan will contribute up to 1.08 billion dollars over the next three years to the Global Fund, which was established following the G8 Kyushu-Okinawa Summit.
4. Prime Minister Kishida went on to refer to the G7 Hiroshima Summit to be held next year and stated that Japan will continue to exercise leadership in the field of global health, working closely with relevant parties. He said that such initiatives are intended to help strengthen international frameworks that contribute to enhancing prevention, preparedness and response to future pandemics learning from COVID-19 experiences, as well as to achieve UHC for strengthening the response to a wide range of global health challenges, including countermeasures against infectious diseases, which have been undermined by the COVID-19.
[Reference 1] Global Fund
Established in 2002 in Geneva, the Global Fund has served as a major public-private partnership dedicated to providing support for countermeasures against infectious diseases, which were first addressed as a major summit agenda item at the G8 Kyushu-Okinawa Summit in 2000. Since its establishment in 2002, the fund has helped to save more than 50 million lives from the three major infectious diseases (HIV, tuberculosis and malaria), as well as to reduce deaths from the three diseases by 46% in more than 100 supported countries. The fund has also contributed to the achievement of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and the prevention of the spread of infectious diseases through providing test laboratories, surveillance, community networks and trained healthcare workers for countermeasures against the three major infectious diseases that have also contributed to the fight against the COVID-19.
[Reference 2] Universal Health Coverage (UHC)
To ensure that all people can receive the quality health services they need at an affordable cost without financial hardship.
