The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), founded in 1902, is the world’s oldest international public health agency. It provides technical cooperation and mobilizes partnerships to improve health and quality of life in the countries of the Americas. PAHO is the specialized health agency of the Inter-American System and serves as the Regional Office for the Americas of the World Health Organization (WHO). Together with WHO, PAHO is a member of the United Nations system.
The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS, or UNAIDS, is the main advocate for accelerated, comprehensive and coordinated global action on the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
The mission of UNAIDS is to lead, strengthen and support an expanded response to HIV and AIDS that includes preventing transmission of HIV, providing care and support to those already living with the virus, reducing the vulnerability of individuals and communities to HIV and alleviating the impact of the epidemic. UNAIDS seeks to prevent the HIV/AIDS epidemic from becoming a severe pandemic.
UNAIDS has five goals:
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is the lead UN agency for delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, and every young person's potential is fulfilled.
The work of the UNFPA involves promotion of the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. This is done through major national and demographic surveys and with population censuses. The data generated are used to create programmes to reduce poverty and address issues concerning the rights of particular minority population groups. One of their aims is to ensure that "every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect" Their work involves the improvement of reproductive health; including creation of national strategies and protocols, and providing supplies and services to these minority groups, as well as internal migrants and refugees, the elderly and the handicapped. The organization has recently been known for its worldwide campaign against obstetric fistula and female genital mutilation.
The UNFPA supports programs in more than 150 countries, territories and areas spread across four geographic regions: Arab States and Europe, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa. Around three quarters of the staff work in the field. It is a member of the United Nations Development Group and part of its Executive Committee.
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (often called The Global Fund or GFATM) is an international financingorganization that aims to "[a]ttract and disburse additional resources to prevent and treat HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria." A public–private partnership, the organization has its secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland. The organization began operations in January 2002.Microsoft founder Bill Gates was one of the first private foundations among many bilateral donors to provide seed money for the project.
The Global Fund is the world's largest financier of anti-AIDS, TB and malaria programs and by mid-2012 has approved funding of USD 22.9 billion that supports more than 1,000 programs in 151 countries. According to the organization, it has financed the distribution of 270 million insecticide-treated nets to combat malaria, provided anti-tuberculosis treatment for 9.3 million people, and provided AIDS treatment for some 3.6 million people. In 2009, the Fund accounted for around 20 percent of international public funding for HIV, 65 percent for tuberculosis, and 65 percent for malaria.
The Global Fund is a financing mechanism rather than an implementing agency. This means that monitoring of programs is supported by a Secretariat of approximately over 400 staff (as of mid-2012) in Geneva. Implementation is overseen by Country Coordinating Mechanisms, committees consisting of in-country stakeholders that need to include, according to GFATM requirements, a broad spectrum of government, NGOs, UN, faith-based, private sector and people living with the disease. This has kept the GFATM Secretariat smaller than other international bureaucracies, yet it has also raised concerns about conflict of interest, as some of the stakeholders represented on the CCMs may also receive money from the GFATM, either as Principal Recipients, Subrecipients, private persons (e.g. for travel or participation at seminars) or contractors.