As the western world continues to suffer economic strife, funding for global development has never been harder to come by. To maintain finance for the fight against poverty we, as advocates, need to be making smart requests that recognise the difficult economic situations many governments find themselves in. We need to support new and innovative means for raising that money which is still so dearly needed.

Last week, the board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria announced that it would no longer be disbursing its 11th round of funding due to insufficient liquidity as a result of donors failing to meet funding pledges.

The Global Fund is the single largest financier of anti-AIDS, TB and Malaria programs worldwide. It is also hugely successful with a proven track record for delivering results on the ground -through their AIDS programs alone they have saved an estimated 6 million lives since 2002.

4 members of the Oxford RESULTS group met with Keith Taylor MEP on 14th October. By chance the Mayor of Oxford was also there, because she used to work for Keith!

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On June 5th, 1981, the U.S Centres for Disease control recorded a cluster of Pneumocystis cariniipneumonia, in five men in Los Angeles. Pneumocystosis, as it is also known, is a form of pneumonia. It is one of the most common opportunistic diseases that blights the lives of people living with HIV. Pneumocystosis is very commonly found in the lungs of healthy people but causes infection in people who have weakened immune systems. These five men became the first victims of the disease we now know as AIDS, but they weren’t to be the last.

Dear Sophie Gale,

I write further to our previous correspondence regarding the GAVI alliance.

Cssr Piebalgs GAVI reply 09-22-2011(3).pdf

This is the letter I sent to Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP for the July action on EU support for vaccines

SL letter on MFF support for GAVI.pdf

Dear Ms Gale,

Many thank for your email of 12 July regarding the GAVI Alliance.

We are pleased to announce our Action call for July, titled: ‘A child’s life saved every forty seconds’ what comes next for vaccines? The aim of this month’s action is to develop long term financial support from the European Commission for both the GAVI alliance and for research and development into new vaccines for diseases like TB, Malaria and HIV/AIDS.

Dr Charles Tannock MEP, who represents our London group members, submitted this question on GAVI:

Subject: The optimal size of the EU budget for assisting vaccination programmes in the developing world.

"I have been contacted by members of my constituency regarding financial support for GAVI from the EU.

In response to the GAVI action, Dr Charles Tannock tabled a Parliamentary Question on EU support for GAVI and the Commission have responded as follows:

"A major instrument of the Commission to support partner Governments is General Budget Support. Most such operations have targets set on vaccine coverage, with disbursements of variable tranches partly linked to their attainments. This gives the Commission an opportunity to include the issue of vaccination in its policy dialogue with the Government.