 Group of Eight Annual Summit
Each summer the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized nations, including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom, meet to discuss common issues, including global health. The summit provides a major opportunity to engage the G8 nations in the global fight against tuberculosis. The G8, as global leaders, should recognize the need for, and make commitments to support, the development of new technologies for TB and other disease of poverty.
In preparation for the 2006 G8 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, the TB Alliance, along with TB advocacy groups and other product development partnerships, worked to develop common "asks," ensuring that these messages were delivered to delegates and their advisors through existing advocacy networks. By lobbying G8 governments, the TB Alliance and its partners successfully influenced the summit's outcome documents.
A communiqué, "Fight Against Infectious Diseases," released by the G8, pledged their support to the Global Plan to Stop TB: 2006-2015, and called "upon all donors and stakeholders to contribute to its effective implementation." The communiqué further recognized the threat of TB by reaffirming the G8's 2001 pledge to halt its spread. The G8 also appealed for increased coordination to stop the deadly TB-HIV co-pandemic.
Finally, the G8 communiqué called for the wider use of innovative partnerships like the TB Alliance "that promote investment in the research, development and production of vaccines, microbicides and drugs for HIV, tuberculosis, malaria and other diseases."
 UNGASS Review Meeting
In 2001, representatives from UN Member States met at the General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS), and signed a declaration of commitment to implement national strategies to control and prevent the spread of the disease. This original declaration made no mention of TB or of the challenge it poses to people living with HIV/AIDS. In May 2006, the General Assembly convened to review progress and renew commitments made at the earlier meeting.
In preparation for the 2006 UNGASS Review Meeting, the TB Alliance and its partners worked successfully to ensure that the issue of TB-HIV co-infection would be addressed. The TB Alliance organized two events meant to influence the UNGASS process. The first, in collaboration with the Irish Mission to the UN, was a roundtable for UN mission representatives on the relationship between TB and HIV. The roundtable provided recommendations on how Member States could better address the dual pandemic through the UNGASS process.
The second event was a briefing, held on the eve of the meeting, which offered delegates and civil society representatives an opportunity to learn more about how to influence UNGASS commitments to fight TB-HIV co-infection. The session was organized in collaboration with Treatment Action Group, RESULTS Educational Fund, and the Open Society Institute's Public Health Watch.
These efforts contributed to official recognition of the need to combat TB-HIV co-infection. Recognizing that TB was not included in the 2001 document, the political declaration of the 2006 UNGASS Review Meeting asks Member States to:
Emphasize the need for accelerated scale-up of collaborative activities on tuberculosis and HIV in line with the Global Plan to stop TB 2006-2015 and investment in new drugs, diagnostics and vaccines appropriate for people with TB-HIV co-infection.
In June of 2008, the first HIV-TB Global Leaders' Forum was held at the United Nations, marking the first time world leaders, senior political officials, activists, and global health experts have gathered to specifically address the dual threat of HIV and TB, two of the world's deadliest and most intertwined infectious diseases.
Participants emphasized the need for accelerated scale-up of collaborative activities to control HIV and TB as the number of people infected with both diseases, or at risk of developing both, is rising worldwide.
The outcome of the meeting was a Call to Action addressed to delegates from UN member states. Among the issues raised in the Call to Action is the urgent need for new and better TB drugs, diagnostics and vaccines — particularly for people living with HIV/AIDS — and the recognition of HIV and TB as formidable constraints to socioeconomic development.
Progress toward the integration of treatments for HIV and TB will be reported on regularly during future UNGASS meetings and other high level meetings on HIV/AIDS, health and development convened by the United Nations system.
 Global Health Council Annual Conference
The Conference on Global Health is organized each year by the Global Health Council (GHC), the world's largest membership organization dedicated to improving global health. The TB Alliance, a GHC organizational member, works to ensure that this major policy event includes information on the need for new drugs to fight TB, malaria and other neglected diseases.
At the 2006 Conference on Global Health, the TB Alliance organized a panel on public-private product development partnerships (PDPs). The session explained the PDP model, emphasizing that innovative partnerships and private sector engagement are promising developments in the fight against infectious disease. Panelists also shared examples of their organizations' work and outlined the PDP model's unique commitments to affordability and treatment adoption.
The panel featured TB Alliance Director of Policy, Nina Schwalbe, Jana Armstrong, of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative and Chris Hentschel, of the Medicines for Malaria Venture. Javid Syed, from Treatment Action Group, moderated the discussion.
The TB Alliance has remained an active participant in subsequent annual Global Health Council Conferences.
At the 2009 Conference, the TB Alliance, in partnership with Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation and the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND), continued to emphasize the achievements of PDPs in changing the way TB research and development is performed and highlight the actions necessary to pave the way for field introduction of new TB tools.
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