Current Board Members
Foundations
Currently represented on the GAVI Board by
The
UN Foundation
Board member: Tim Wirth, President
Term of office: July 2001 to June 2003
UNF has been actively defining how to most
effectively spend a part of its resources approximately $20
million a year to benefit the neediest children. UNF's focus
is based on the UN's goals and priorities, particularly the Plan
of Action from the 1990 World Summit for Children.
UNFs involvement in GAVI contributes to its
following priority areas within children's health:
Decreasing Child Mortality
Child survival continues to provide the foundation
for developmental work that benefits children. The survival of children
has been associated with subsequent important societal changes.
Such changes include, for example, reductions in family size which
provides opportunities for increased economic prosperity.
New approaches to delivering preventive public
health interventions
New approaches are needed to deliver preventive public
health interventions that will save the lives of children. For example,
many children die of preventable diseases because they live beyond
the reach of public health services that provide vaccines and other
interventions. Creative new means such as the Sustainable
Outreach Services (SOS) must be used to increase children's
access to such preventive services. SOS is a joint effort by WHO
and UNICEF that combines innovation in both the process by which
children are reached and the preventive services that are delivered.
UNF seeks to support well-founded, new, and innovative processes
to reach those who lack access to preventive public health interventions,
often the poorest of the poor.
Polio Eradication: Strengthening the public health
infrastructure for infectious diseases
UNF support for polio eradication can make a lasting
contribution to humanity by helping rid the world's children of
a terrible disease forever. UNF is considering a partnership with
Rotary International to raise substantial resources from the private
sector for the eradication efforts. In addition, UNF will commit
targeted financial support to polio eradication efforts, particularly
in the context of strengthening the pubic health infrastructure,
including surveillance and capacity building.
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