Global Fund wants financial markets to help save lives

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and Dow Jones Indexes signed a Memorandum of Understanding to explore the creation of a series of indexes that could be licensed as the basis for investible products.

It is envisioned that the flagship of this index series would be a blue-chip index to be called the Dow Jones Global Fund 50 Index.

The announcement was made at the international conference on Innovative Financial Solutions for Development organised by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank and the French development agency in Paris.

Both, The Global Fund and Dow Jones Indexes, hope to benefit from this collaboration.

The Global Fund wants to further strengthen its engagement with the private sector and bring to bear the power of financial markets to help save lives.

The Global Fund is a leading multilateral financing organization in global health with commitments with more than US$19 billion to date.

Dow Jones Indexes intends to add to its range of socially-conscious indexes that will complement its increasingly diverse range of products.

"Global Fund and Dow Jones Indexes are leaders and innovators in their respective fields. This collaboration will lead to the creation of investable indexes that will be representative of the Global Fund's goals and mission," said Michael Petronella, president, Dow Jones Indexes.

"This collaboration with Dow Jones Indexes will provide the financial community with incentives and vehicles to participate in innovative financing of health and development," added Robert Filipp, head of innovative financing at the Global Fund.

"We are excited that the feedback from market participants has been very positive."