The Global Fund Secretariat

The Global Fund Secretariat is responsible for day-to-day operations, including mobilizing resources from the public and private sectors, overseeing grant implementation, providing financial, legal and administrative support to the Global Fund Board, and reporting information on the Global Fund's activities to the Board and the public.

After the Board has approved a proposal for funding, the Secretariat, through the Local Fund Agent, assesses the capacity of the nominated Principal Recipient to manage the implementation of the activities funded under the grant. If the outcome of the assessment is satisfactory, the Secretariat enters into a grant agreement (PDF - 407 KB) with the Principal Recipient. The Secretariat is also responsible for making periodic disbursement decisions (usually every 3, 6 or 12 months) during the lifetime of the grant and recommendations to the Board regarding grant renewal.

Specific role of the Secretariat in performance-based funding

• During proposal development the Secretariat reviews proposals to ensure they meet eligibility criteria and forwards all eligible proposals to the Technical Review Panel for consideration.
• At grant negotiation, the Secretariat works with the Principal Recipient to finalize the country-defined indicators and targets which will be used to evaluate the performance of the program during the lifetime of the grant agreement.
• For periodic disbursements, on receipt of the Local Fund Agent-verified progress update from the Principal Recipient the Secretariat evaluates the performance of the grant and decides on the amount to be disbursed for the next period of implementation.
• For grant renewal, the Secretariat carries out a comprehensive review of the grant including independent internal reviews by finance, performance, and procurement teams. On the basis of these reviews the Secretariat recommends to the Board regarding continued funding for the remainder of the period covered by the proposal.

More information about the Secretariat