Agak Achuil, Minister of Finance and Planning meeting the Global Fund delegation in Juba on Tuesday 8th Feb. 2022. Photo: Office of the Minister

The Global Fund has pledge 150 million US dollars to step up fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and COVID19 in South Sudan.

The Global Fund, founded by Bill Gates, Melinda French Gates, Kofi Annan, Jeffrey Sachs, Amir Attaran made the commitment on Tuesday

The promise was made in a meeting between South Sudan’s Minister of Finance, Agak Acuil, and Ibrahim Faria, Global Fund’s Regional Manager for Middle East and North Africa.

“They have pledged to give us a grant of one hundred and fifty million US dollars towards our health sector and also discusded with us the partners on how we can contribute towards our health sector”, Agak Acuil told reporters after the meeting.

For his part Ibrahim Faria, Global Fund, Regional Manager for Middle East and North Africa said;

“So far we have seen all the partners and today we discussed the opportunity and see how we can improve our partnership with the Ministry of Finance in term of health financing.”

The Global Fund is an international financing and partnership organization that aims to “attract, leverage and invest additional resources to end the epidemics of HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

This is to support attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations.

In May 2020, the South Sudan Country Coordination Mechanism submitted a Funding Request for the next Global Fund allocation period running from 2021-2023.

The total value of the submission was US$71 million to sustain and expand HIV, TB and Resilient and sustainable systems for health programmes.