Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our meeting today. We have the opportunity to talk with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and we have a couple of guests before us.
We have Christoph Benn, who is with the fund, and we also have Svend Robinson, who is probably no stranger to most of us around the room. Welcome, gentlemen. We're glad you could both be here.
I just want to talk a bit about the Global Fund and the fact that it was established in 2002. It does great work with AIDS, TB, and malaria. A lot of us know that. One of the things that make it particularly interesting with regard to how it works is the fact that the Global Fund insists on country ownership, which I think is great, and partnerships. It is performance-based and works with all sectors of society.
I know you guys are going to touch on this, but it begs repeating over and over again that the work that is done through the Global Fund is very exemplary.
The other thing that I know is that there was a pledging conference in 2013 with over $12 billion pledged, and since 2002 Canada has pledged and committed over $2.1 billion, if I am correct. That bears repeating. Our most recent pledge was around $650 million for the coming year, I believe.
There are a lot of organizations involved. Civil society is involved in how decisions are made, etc.
Why don't we just turn it over to you and you can give us an update on what's going on and some of the things that you're doing. Then we'll take some time to go around the room and ask questions and follow up on exactly what is happening with the Global Fund these days.
I'm going to turn it over to you guys.