From HIV to Global Cancer Prevention: A New Chapter in Global Health Financing

This month at the UN General Assembly in New York, I attended the launch of the Global Cancer Financing Platform — an ambitious new effort to mobilize at least $1 billion by 2030 focused on “stage shifting” or catching cancers earlier. The Platform will raise funds through innovative financing approaches, first focusing its resources on cervical and breast cancer.

When Dr. Catharine Young, the platform’s lead, first began sharing the bold vision, many told her it was impossible to raise new global health funding in the current environment. But at the launch, the mood was anything but skeptical. Seven countries have already committed to partnership, and the energy in the room was hopeful, even electric, as new prospects for mobilizing resources came into focus.

One theme echoed again and again. This new platform builds on the hard-won lessons of past global health successes. Speakers pointed to the HIV movement, PEPFAR, and especially the Global Fund, as the models that made this moment possible. The Global Fund is an independent, multilateral financing entity established to accelerate the end of HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria. Since its inception in 2002, it has saved 70 million lives and re-shaped the world’s most deadly pandemics.

The Global Fund demonstrated that true progress comes from country ownership, the leadership of affected communities, and multilateral collaboration. By putting decision-making power in the hands of those most impacted and creating accountability through shared governance, the Global Fund transformed how the world finances healthcare. The Global Cancer Financing Platform is drawing on these same principles — ensuring that financing is not just about raising money, but also about building equitable, sustainable systems that save lives and strengthen communities.

Working at the intersection of HIV research and policy, I’ve seen firsthand how political will can transform what once seemed impossible into reality. The course of the HIV pandemic changed because leaders, activists, scientists, and communities demanded bold action. Investments by PEPFAR and the Global Fund showed the power of global coordination between bilateral and multilateral institutions to address the world’s greatest health challenges. These efforts not only turned the tide of HIV – they also built the blueprint for how to finance large-scale responses to urgent health crises. The global HIV response built clinics, trained health workers, created supply chains, and fostered a generation of advocates. Now those same lessons are fueling bold action to confront cancer.

amfAR is proud to be a part of the coalition of organizations that have worked over this past year towards defining the Global Cancer Financing Platform strategy, helping to carry forward the spirit of innovation, urgency, and equity that has long defined the HIV response. While the fight against HIV is not over and we must continue to invest, the HIV movement has never been just about one virus — it has been about building the kind of global solidarity and health infrastructure that can rise to any challenge.

The Global Cancer Financing Platform is proof of that legacy, and a call to keep building it.

Dr. Sherwood is Director of Research, Public Policy, at amfAR.