The failure to reduce the burden of these diseases and the evidence of their increasing impact have brought them to the centre of the development debate -— as evidenced by the Declaration of Commitment of the Special Session of the UN General Assembly of June 2001, which recognises that HIV/AIDS has evolved to become a developmental emergency, and by the WHO World Health Assembly's declaration of tuberculosis and malaria as global emergencies -— and have led to calls for urgent action and a series of national, regional and international initiatives, all meant to achieve the Millennium Development Goals which include clear targets to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, and to which the European Community and its Member States committed themselves.