Few realized the significance when the UAE’s founding father, HH Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, invited Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter to the UAE in July of 1990. The 39th president of the US was championing an initiative to eradicate a little-known parasitic disease that had a debilitating impact on millions of lives in Africa and Asia. Sheikh Zayed responded with a personal donation to the Carter Center’s Guinea Worm Eradication Program, which began a long-standing commitment by the Al Nahyan family to help abolish infectious diseases that disproportionally impact developing nations. Since then, the decades-long UAE-Carter Center partnership has helped avert at least 80 million cases of Guinea worm, and expanded to eliminate additional neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) that affect the world’s marginalized and most vulnerable communities.
1986
The Carter Center launches the first international campaign to eradicate Guinea worm. At the campaign’s inception, there were an estimated 3.5 million human cases.
1990
HH Sheikh Zayed invites Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter to the UAE and makes a personal commitment to the Carter Center campaign, kickstarting a decades-long philanthropic partnership.
2017
Expanding the UAE’s commitment to end NTDs, Sheikh Zayed’s son, HH Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, launches the Reaching the Last Mile Fund (RLMF), with support from several partners including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. RLMF is a ten-year, multi-donor fund working across seven countries in Africa and the Middle East to pave the way for the global elimination of the NTDs river blindness and lymphatic filariasis.
2020
Marking 30 years of partnership between The Carter Center and the UAE, HH Sheikh Mohamed pledges $10 million USD to the Carter Center’s Guinea Worm Eradication Program, following a $5 million USD commitment in 2016.
2022
The Carter Center and the UAE host the Guinea Worm Summit in Abu Dhabi, resulting in important discussions, a signed declaration and tangible actions to accelerate efforts to eradicate the disease completely by 2030.
2023
The number of reported human cases of Guinea worm disease rests at only 2 to date.
The UAE and its leadership have been committed to fighting neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) for over 30 years. Since 2010, HH Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed has donated more than $400 million USD towards efforts to eliminate preventable infectious diseases, including polio, malaria and NTDs.
