On Monday, the U.K. announced it would donate £1 billion ($1.6 billion) over the next three years to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. However, disbursement of the funds is dependent upon other donors dedicating enough funding to reach the Global Fund’s $15 billion Fourth Replenishment goal. The following summarize several opinion pieces on the U.K.’s donation and the Global Fund.

• Lucy Chesire, Huffington Post’s “Big Push” blog: Following the U.K.’s “historic” commitment, “[w]e now look at the rest of the world to ensure that this year’s replenishment (for 2014-2016) is a huge success,” Chesire, executive director and secretary to the Board of the TB ACTION Group, writes. “This is a substantial increase from the U.K.’s previous commitment” and “[w]e know that for every pound pledged to the Global Fund, more lives will be saved,” she says (9/24).
• Amanda Glassman, The Guardian’s “Poverty Matters Blog”: Noting “[e]arly indications from major donors are strong” for the Global Fund, Glassman, director of global health policy and a research fellow with the Center for Global Development, writes, “But there is something far more valuable than $15 billion alone — results.” She continues, “The Global Fund’s headline figures are extrapolated from the number of products purchased or the number of services reported by funding recipients themselves,” and “[m]onths of analysis and questioning led to the conclusion that the Global Fund tracks receipts better than it tracks results.” She suggests “very basic reforms,” adding, “The Global Fund must put as much energy into getting results as delivering rhetoric, pursuing performance verification with no less vigor than advocacy” (9/27).
• Robin Gorna, Huffington Post U.K.’s “Politics” blog: The U.K.’s Global Fund pledge “is a truly remarkable outcome — and could prove to be a turning point in the history of global health, Gorna, founder of AIDS Strategy, Advocacy and Policy, writes. “The confidence in the Global Fund — and the acknowledgement that defeating the three diseases should be a priority — happened because of an intelligent, savvy coalition of advocates with smart tactics,” she states, adding, “The U.K. met this smart advocacy with a smart solution” of conditioning its donation to the goal of meeting the Global Fund’s $15 billion replenishment goal. “For the remainder of the year we can expect lots of back and forth as each government seeks to prove they care about global health more than the other,” she writes, concluding, “The U.K.’s £1 billion is not only very generous; it’s also very clever” (9/26).
• James Whiting, Huffington Post U.K.’s “Politics” blog: The U.K.’s “support has the power to save, protect and transform millions of lives,” Whiting, executive director of Malaria No More U.K., writes, adding, “This positive momentum needs to be sustained. Investing now, sets us on course to achieve something truly amazing and avoid staggering costs in the future, [and] this is why the U.K. government’s ambitious and continued support needs to be echoed by others.” He summarizes the work of the Global Fund and the U.K. government in response to malaria (9/25).