The Global Fund Board meets to consider 5-year strategy, reform agenda
10 May 2011
The Board to reaffirm the Global Fund’s commitment to transparency
GENEVA - The 23rd Board meeting of the Global Fund is being held here on Wednesday and Thursday to discuss a five-year strategy as well as a reform plan aimed at improving operational performance and enhancing organizational efficiency. The strategy will set ambitious goals to save millions of lives in the next 5 years.
The Board is also set to reaffirm the Global Fund’s commitment to transparency and accountability following media reports in January about misuse of funds in some Global Fund grants.
“By nature of its mandate, and in order to reach some of the world’s most vulnerable populations, the Global Fund works in countries with weak institutional and control environments. In tackling mismanagement and corruption, it is driven by two core principles – full transparency and zero tolerance of fraud,” said the Board’s outgoing chairman, Tedros Ghebreyesus on the eve of the meeting.
The new five-year strategy (2012-2016) proposes that the Global Fund should strive towards saving up to 20 million additional lives and averting 200 million infections by 2016. This will require improvements in efficiency, increased financial resources and a more targeted allocation of grant money.
The comprehensive reform agenda is focusing on a wide range of areas to increase efficiency and mitigate operational risks, enhancing fiduciary control, performance-based funding, value for money, management of grants, governance and resource mobilization.
The Global Fund will this week release its first investigation report, on misuse of funds in three grants in Mali. The investigation led the Global Fund in December to take firm actions to re-organize the grants in Mali.
“The former recipients have been replaced,” says Dr Ghebreyesus. “One grant has been terminated. Hopefully, the programs supported by the Global Fund in Mali will soon again function satisfactorily and assist the country in driving back its pandemics. The Global Fund’s mission is to save lives and assist countries in building strong, sustainable health systems. Every dollar lost to corruption is a dollar lost in this struggle. The Global Fund will relentlessly protect its assets and it will do so in an unwavering commitment to the countries it serves.”
The Board meeting will end Thursday evening and will be followed by a call for proposals for the 11th grant round of the Global Fund, allowing countries to apply for additional funding for their efforts to fight the three pandemics.