Foreign Affairs committee  Not only have we had discussions with the Canadian government, but the Canadian government sits on our board. We are always discussing it with the board member and others, including through our governance. We have basically discussed in depth the strategy of the Global Fund. The strategy was designed and approved by our board.

Foreign Affairs committee  Canada adopted the strategy alongside the other board members. We haven't had a formal discussion yet when it comes to the target.

Foreign Affairs committee  We don't know yet. We will need all of your support for that.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much for your kind words. We are at the moment implementing the funds that we raised in the sixth replenishment. It's not over, and thank you, Canada, again, for your very robust pledge. Implementation is ongoing. Indeed, we have never deployed as many resources in the past.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you. In fact, what I tried to explain at the beginning is that the $18 billion target represents an increase of 30%, roughly, compared with the sixth replenishment. That 30% is not because we have suddenly become more expensive. In fact, we have very low operating costs. For your information, 5.2% is our level of operating costs; so it's very, very low.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you. I would, of course, be very glad to answer your questions in French.

Foreign Affairs committee  You're right. The devastating effects of the COVID‑19 pandemic on AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria have been well-documented. In fact, we have lost ground in the fight against the three diseases, which we have invested so heavily in over the past two decades. It is true, however, that some positive things came of the COVID‑19 pandemic.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you for your question. I don't know enough about the regime you mentioned. Nevertheless, generally speaking, the Global Fund partnership is an excellent tool, because we can sit down with the board and talk about which tools are working and which ones aren't as effective in relation to implementing countries.

Foreign Affairs committee  At this stage, we are off track. If we continue at the same pace, rate and way in which we are currently going in the fight against the three diseases, we are off track. We were already slightly off track before COVID, but COVID-19 pushed us far, far off track. There is the possibility of getting back on track if we take action now.

Foreign Affairs committee  Well, it depends; 75% of our investment is in sub-Saharan Africa, because this is where the highest burdens are and the lowest economic capacities can be found. We have seen progress across the three diseases and across the regions, but perhaps I would flag that the disease that was mostly left behind before COVID, and that most suffered from COVID as well, is tuberculosis.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes. Very quickly, with HIV the challenge is mostly on the prevention side. We've made a lot of progress on the treatment side. We are able to save people's lives and allow them to lead healthy lives with antiretroviral treatment. On prevention we need to scale up our efforts, mostly in two areas, one being adolescent girls and young women.

Foreign Affairs committee  We do have a performance-based funding model by which, indeed, a country that wouldn't be investing enough.... We ask countries to also invest in the fight against the three diseases. It's co-funding, so we have a performance-based funding mechanism. When it comes to human rights and gender-related barriers, it's not a straightforward response, obviously, because, if we did have those as criteria, then we would leave a lot of people who need lifesaving treatment behind and put their lives on the line.

Foreign Affairs committee  We track funding requirements, and we push hard for that. We have a very good return performance in terms of differing requirements from countries. When it comes to corruption cases, we have a series of instruments that we can use. One of them is that we can change the recipients of the grants, because we have multiple recipients.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much for the remarks. Indeed we are quite proud that together over the past 20 years we have saved 44 million lives. It's quite remarkable and humbling. You're right that COVID-19 has been a shock for everybody—for countries, rich and poor alike, and for organizations and partners like the Global Fund.

Foreign Affairs committee  We have, first of all, no tolerance for any sort of fraud or any misbehaviour across our programs. We fund programs in more than 120 countries, subject to three lines of defence. We have, obviously, our financial controls first. We have our risk department, which also oversees the allocation of the funds in countries.