“The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria didn’t meet its goal last week of raising $15 billion to support disease programs over the next three years. But that isn’t stopping the Geneva-based organization’s executive director, Mark Dybul, from being ‘cautiously optimistic’ that it will,” the Wall Street Journal’s “Washington Wire” blog reports. At a replenishment meeting last week in Washington, D.C., the Global Fund secured $12 billion in pledges, and “[w]hile that’s short of the ultimate goal, it’s about 30 percent more than the international health financier raised for 2011-2013, Dr. Dybul noted in an interview,” the blog writes. Noting several African nations, including Namibia, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe, made pledges, the blog adds, “The contributions from African nations signal a new type of partnership in which nations that once relied heavily on wealthy donors to pay for their disease-fighting programs are now funding and leading many of those programs themselves, [Dybul] said” (McKay, 12/11).