UK Minister says Global Fund has "excellent track record" and will receive increased funding
01 March 2011
GENEVA, 1 March 2011 – The United Kingdom’s Development Minister said on Tuesday that the Global Fund was one of 9 international organizations with an “excellent track record” for delivering results and would receive increased funding in the future.
Secretary of State for International Development Andrew Mitchell told the House of Commons (Lower House of Parliament) that a far-reaching review of 43 multilateral organizations found that 9 of them, including the Global Fund, were assessed as giving “very good value to the UK taxpayer.”
“We will increase funding because they have an excellent track record for delivering results,” said Mitchell.
The Multilateral Aid Review (MAR) found that the Global Fund played a critical role in delivering health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and was likely to remain a key financier of existing and new approaches to tackling AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
The Global Fund’s Executive Director Michel Kazatchkine welcomed the UK Development Minister’s statement. “I am very pleased this important review of the United Kingdom’s multilateral funding has concluded that the Global Fund delivers excellent results and offers value for money. We also welcome the review’s suggestions for how we can do even better in the future.”
The purpose of the Multilateral Aid Review, commissioned by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), was to assess whether the UK is getting the best possible value for the money that it contributes to international organizations.
“Global Fund support has catalysed and supported important and innovative policies and programmes in many countries,” said the review.
The review also gave the Global Fund high marks for transparency and accountability, saying that the “Fund’s decision to publish/require recipients to publish procurement data has been a major driver for a range of innovations in transparency.”
Reforms under way at the Global Fund to simplify procedures and improve the effectiveness of its work with countries and partners “should reduce transaction costs, shorten grant processes, align reporting and shift from project to programme-type funding,” it added.
The impact of the Global Fund’s work on malaria and reproductive maternal and neonatal health made it a “significant vehicle” for delivering on DFID’s strategic priorities, according to the review.
It also called on the Global Fund to make sure that it “put its resources to work on the ground more quickly.” It said areas for improvement included work with fragile states, where the Global Fund’s policies needed to be more flexible, and cooperation with its partners.