United Nations High-Level Meeting on TB Policy Note.

At the first United Nations High-Level Meeting (HLM) on TB back in 2018, UN member states pledged “to mobilize sufficient and sustainable financing, with the aim of increasing overall global investments to 2 billion dollars […] in funding annually for tuberculosis research” over a five-year period. However, a new TAG analysis with support from the Stop TB Partnership “Far Off Track: Funding for TB Research, 2018–2022” finds that over the five years covered by the HLM declaration, only $4.7 billion — less than half the promised total — ever materialized. Bridging that gap to stay on track to end TB by 2030 will require increasing investments to $5 billion annually, with an especial focus on developing a new TB vaccine.

To meet these updated benchmarks, we call on each UN member state to allocate its “fair share target” — defined as 0.15% of overall R&D spending — toward TB. This analysis will be followed by a fuller look at new data on funding for TB research in fiscal year 2022 to be published in December 2023 as part of TAG’s Tuberculosis Research Funding Trends annual report series.