As the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR — the world’s largest bilateral HIV program — faces unprecedented budget threats and a shifting global health landscape, experts are calling for a responsible transition, one that ensures countries can take the reins without sacrificing the gains of the past two decades.
Speaking at a recent Devex Pro Briefing, Dr. Mark Dybul, former U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator and one of PEPFAR’s original architects, emphasized that PEPFAR and The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria were never intended to be permanent.
“If you go back and look at the legislation, partnership compacts are mentioned in the 2008 reauthorization, and we had started working on them before the end of the Bush administration,” he said, adding that the administration had agreed on a five-year transition plan with South Africa, which was later derailed by the 2008 financial crisis.