Donors pledged to give nearly 10 billion dollars to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria at a conference held Thursday in Berlin.

Before the donor conference kicked off, fund officials predicted that around 8 billion dollars would be directed to the fund, but donor countries pledged to give 9.7 billion dollars to the Global Fund over the next three years.

The meeting was chaired by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan who said money coming from the fund set up in 2002 has already saved two million lives, but “with these funds, many millions more lives can be saved in the years ahead.”

“I am very satisfied with the pledges that have been made at this conference,” Annan said after the meeting, adding that the international community made important steps toward efficiently combating the three merciless diseases.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was part of the 50 delegations from donor countries, the private sector, civil society and UN partner organizations that attended the conference.

She said efficient health programs run by the Global Fund, the World Health Organization, the World Bank and the United States worldwide “must be networked in the right way.”

“We need to significantly improve the efficiency of health programmes,” Merkel stressed.

The Berlin donor conference is the second of this type organized by the Global Fund, after the London conference in 2005.

Annan said the donor meeting is “the largest single financing effort for global health ever undertaken” and outlined that “money channeled through the Global Fund is money invested effectively.”

So far, the fund channeled 8.4 millions to 136 countries, where 1.1 million AIDS sufferers and some 3 million tuberculosis sufferers need this assistance. Nearly 30 million anti-mosquito nets were also set up in those countries, Annan said.

Even if two million lives have been saved by programs supported by the Global Fund, Annan said more needs to be done.

“We have not done enough ... We are behind. We are particularly behind when it comes to health,” the Ghanaian diplomat said.

Michel Kazatchkine, the fund’s executive director, said the organization will have to ensure that the funds are properly used and all operations are transparent.

“The Global Fund must now ensure that the funds are used responsibly, professionally and transparently, so that effective, sustainable and live-saving measures are undertaken,” Kazatchkine said.

“We are seeing an impact in countries and we are seeing that we can change the epidemics. In some regions we see pediatric wards emptying as we finally make progress against malaria,” he added.

Since 2002, when it was set up, the fund has received contributions of more than 11 billion dollars and its “program is adapted to countries’ needs,” as Global Fund spokesman Jon Liden said.

The US government is the main donor, its contribution representing nearly 30 per cent of the total sum. President George W Bush announced that the United States will spend 15 billion dollars to fight AIDS over the five years 2003-08 in an individual program, which runs in parallel with an anti-malaria program.