Friends of the Global Fund – Latin America & the Caribbean (Friends – LAC) is a regional initiative which works to mobilise strategic political and financial support for the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Friends LAC contributes to increasing the understanding of and support for the Global Fund through awareness-raising and educational campaigns, advocacy activities at the country and regional levels and documenting Global Fund stories and lessons learned.

Friends of the Global Fund – Latin America and the Caribbean was launched in Paraguay, December 2009 at the Global Fund’s Regional Meeting for Country and Regional Coordinating Mechanisms in South America. The initiative encourages and promotes the active participation of governments, the private sector, academia and civil society in all of the Global Fund’s structures whether at the national, regional or international levels.

Executive Director: Javier Hourcade Bellocq

Javier Hourcade Bellocq has been working on HIV/AIDS since 1987. He was one of the founders and the first Regional Secretary of the Latin American Network of People living with HIV (RedLa+). Since 2003, Javier has worked for the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, first as Senior Programme Officer, responsible for the management of Alliance’s programme in Ecuador, and since 2005 as Regional Representative for Latin America and the Caribbean. Javier is a member of the Global Fund Board’s Communities Delegation and served as a Global Fund Board Member from 2006 to 2009. He is based in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Communications and Policy Advisor: Alexandra Lamb Guevara

Alexandra Lamb Guevara worked in the Latin America and Caribbean team at the International HIV/AIDS Alliance from 2003-2007 where she supported programmes in Ecuador, Haiti and the English-speaking Caribbean, and managed projects with regional community networks of female sex workers and men who have sex with men. Since 2007, Alexandra has been living in Cali, Colombia where she has been working as an independent consultant focusing particularly on Global Fund operations in the region.

The governing board is in the process of being established.