Mrs. Mataka would like to commend the Japanese government for holding this meeting and consulting with the countries who will be affected by any decisions with respect to the funding by the Japanese government of developing countries in Southern Africa. One of the principles of the Global Fund is to use country-based processes to develop the programs which it funds as it is essential to hear from the people who will be implemented and affected by the programs.

 

Mrs. Mataka is appealing to the Japanese government to put HIV/AIDS/TB and malaria at the forefront of TICAD’s agenda. While the improvement of health systems and has been included as a component of “human security”, the issue of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria must be discussed separately as it has a direct impact on development and all socio-economic issues in the country. There can be no development in any other area without addressing these three epidemics.

 

I don’t have to tell you that AIDS, TB and Malaria are major threats to the well-being of millions of people in Africa. You know the figures as well as I do. We all know that there still is a huge gap in the scale up towards Universal Access to prevention, treatment and care and also the realization of the health related MDGs is still far from being achieved. This does not mean that there is no movement and no opportunity in this area. Actually I want to claim that the opposite is true: we have all the means to move forward; we have evidence on the prevention strategies that work, we have cases of good practice, we have the drugs that can save lives.

 

At the recent Replenishment Meeting of the Global Fund, international public and private donors pledged 9.7 billion US-Dollar to support HIV, TB and Malaria interventions in developing countries. This pledge equals a doubling of the funding available to the Global Fund. This is a start; a good start to reach out to those millions of people who today still don’t have the means to protect and secure their health and their life. However, in order to ultimately stop and turn these epidemics we have to be better and faster, we all have to be vibrant, scale up our efforts manifold: TICAD is a central opportunity to do so.

I would like to say that as an African woman, as the United Nations’ Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS in Africa and vice chair of the Board of the Global Fund she asks all of us, not to miss this opportunity. Let’s use it to its full.

 

Let me end by putting forward some very concrete suggestions:

- put the fight against infectious diseases central on TICAD’s agenda

- let’s discuss the realization of the health MDGs and the scale up towards universal access

- it is absolutely right that maternal and child health are central prerequisites of a healthy development: therefore let’s discuss the integration of sexual and reproductive health services with AIDS, TB and Malaria interventions.