“The 2019 Global Fund replenishment decision was the key that started the ball rolling.”

These are the future words of Dr. Zhang Xiu Ying, the head of the World Health Organization in 2030, and the moderator of a panel entitled “How We Won the War Against AIDS” at the 28th International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa. From their perspective in the future, the panel is looking back at key moments in what will be, by then, a fifty-year history of the AIDS epidemic. They have been discussing the fluctuations in global funding, which experienced a very rapid growth in the 2000s and most of the 2010s, followed by a few years of stagnation before a significant jump in 2020 and 2021. That jump was one of the key factors that led to an end of the epidemic in the late 2020s.

The good news in the reality of the present is that the Global Fund replenishment meeting in Lyon, France, earlier this month was successful. Commitments were secured for $14.02 billion over the next three years, a 15% increase over the previous three-year period. This represents a very important step in the direction of a future in which we successfully end the AIDS epidemic.

But more steps must be taken. The Global Fund investment case is based on expectations of significant increases in domestic funding by the recipient countries. From her future perspective, this is what Dr. Zhang is referring to when she says, “That decision triggered other funding decisions. Like the recipient countries. As I recall, they raised their domestic funding for AIDS by almost 50%”.

So we can obviously celebrate this important step, but now it will be up to the recipient countries to ensure that we have the resources we need to win the war against AIDS.