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All Eyes on Johannesburg for the Global Fund’s 8th Replenishment

November 20, 2025
Impact

This is a guest (RED)ITORIAL written by Connie Mudenda, a longtime (RED) ambassador, health advocate, and AIDS activist.

This Friday, world leaders will come together in Johannesburg, South Africa in support of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria. The organization’s name is long and calls out three of the world’s deadliest diseases, despite being all of them being preventable and treatable. The focus on these killers is global, as the organization’s title implies, not because the disease burden sits equally between nations, but because the havoc they have and continue to wreak knows no borders. I know this injustice personally.

Like many people, being a parent has defined who I am. And like every parent knows, there is nothing more terrifying than the fragility of a child’s life. I’ve had four children of my own, but only one has made it to her 12th birthday.

I lost my three eldest children to AIDS before we even knew the disease existed. It was over 30 years ago and what would have saved their lives – tests and medicine – were not accessible to people living in Zambia, where I’m from.

Slowly, because of the blood, sweat and far too many tears from activists, innovation from scientists, partnership with the private sector, and the choices made by politicians, things started to change. The Global Fund and PEPFAR were created.  It was too late for my first three children, but just in time for me.

These smart investments meant diagnostics and drugs and prevention started to appear in our communities. A midwife helping to deliver a baby in one home was now trained to detect signs of TB in an entire community. People going to pick up bed nets now learned how to stay safe from COVID. And mothers like me with HIV now safely gave birth to healthy, HIV-free children, like my youngest daughter, Lubona.

All of this progress hasn’t just made life possible for Lubona and me, it’s made life worth living. Access to testing and medication has allowed me to stay healthy, to earn a degree, to make a living doing what I love, and to send my daughter to school so that one day she can do the same.  

But all of this progress is at risk.  

Recent government funding cuts have stripped away decades of life-saving work in a matter of weeks. Up until last month, I was a Trainer and Mentor for mental health counselors caring for clients living with HIV. Up until last month, hundreds of people in my care were accessing vital health services – individuals were thriving. And then the funding stopped.

The fragility of life is once again haunting our communities.  

Financing for global health is not perfect and there are changes that must be made. Most people living in Africa – including me – will agree that the path forward must point away from dependency and toward sustainability.  And that is exactly what the Global Fund has always been committed to. It is a true partnership between countries and communities and for every $1 invested there is a $19 return in health and economic benefits.  I am living proof of this math equation.

November 21st is the 8th Global Fund Replenishment Conference. It is also my daughter Lubona’s 13th birthday. She will close her eyes and blow out her birthday candles. Her wish is for a new bike.  I’ll have my eyes on Johannesburg.  I’ll be holding my breath, hoping that donors will choose to let me see her turn 14.