Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria

Since its creation in 2002, the Global Fund has become the main source of finance for programs to fight AIDS, TB and malaria, with approved grants of US $19.3 billion for more than 572 programs in 144 countries. It provides two-thirds of all international financing for TB globally. The U.S. government has provided more than $5.130 billion in contributions to the Global Fund.

The Global Fund TB grants support the implementation of the WHO Stop TB Strategy and finance all components of it. The USAID is the largest bilateral TB donor for TB. USAID strategically programs its resources to leverage and ensure successful implementation of the Global Fund resources. In the countries supported by the USAID, most of the technical assistance to the Ministry of Health’s National TB Program (NTP) is funded through the USAID’s TB programs. This assistance supports the NTP to develop and implement their national five year strategic plans. The Global Fund grants and USG bilateral TB work plans are developed to fill the financing gaps identified in the NTP strategic plan. This approach ensures country ownership, promotes NTP management capacity, enables coordination of external and national TB resources, and maximizes outcomes.

In addition to helping countries prepare applications to the Global Fund, USAID’s TB program provides funding for direct technical assistance to the Global Fund grant Principal Recipients in implementing and removing bottlenecks to grant implementation. There are often delays in the Global Fund grant initiation at the beginning, during the transition to Phase II or in the worst case grant suspension. In these situations, the USG TB bilateral funds are commonly reprogrammed to ensure that critical NTP activities are continued to avoid devastating repercussions to the national program. In addition, the Global Fund proposals often did not anticipate all critical activities needed to ensure the overall success of the grant or NTP strategic plan. The USG bilateral funds can be flexible and try to fill such gaps to the extent possible.

For more information, visit The Global Fund Web site at http://www.theglobalfund.org/.