The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (or simply the Global Fund) is an international
financing
Funding is the act of providing resources to finance a need, program, or project. While this is usually in the form of money, it can also take the form of effort or time from an organization or company. Generally, this word is used when a firm use ...
and partnership organization that aims to "attract, leverage and invest additional resources to end the epidemics of
HIV/AIDS
The HIV, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system. Without treatment, it can lead to a spectrum of conditions including acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). It is a Preventive healthcare, pr ...
,
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...
and
malaria
Malaria is a Mosquito-borne disease, mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects vertebrates and ''Anopheles'' mosquitoes. Human malaria causes Signs and symptoms, symptoms that typically include fever, Fatigue (medical), fatigue, vomitin ...
to support attainment of the
Sustainable Development Goals
The ''2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development'', adopted by all United Nations (UN) members in 2015, created 17 world Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The aim of these global goals is "peace and prosperity for people and the planet" – wh ...
established by the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
". This
multistakeholder international organization
An international organization, also known as an intergovernmental organization or an international institution, is an organization that is established by a treaty or other type of instrument governed by international law and possesses its own le ...
maintains its
secretariat in
Geneva
Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...
,
Switzerland
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
.
The organization began operations in January 2002.
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...
founder
Bill Gates
William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American businessman and philanthropist. A pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, he co-founded the software company Microsoft in 1975 with his childhood friend ...
(through the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
The Gates Foundation is an American private foundation founded by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates. Based in Seattle, Washington, it was launched in 2000 and is reported to be the third largest charitable foundation in the world, holding $ ...
) was one of the first donors to provide
seed money
Seed money, also known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor puts capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term ''seed'' suggest ...
for the partnership.
From January 2006 it has benefited from certain US Privileges, Exemptions, and Immunities under
executive order
In the United States, an executive order is a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. The legal or constitutional basis for executive orders has multiple sources. Article Two of the ...
13395, which conferred
International Organizations Immunities Act status on it.
The Global Fund is the world's largest financier of AIDS, TB, and malaria prevention, treatment, and care programs. As of June 2019, the organization had disbursed more than US$41.6 billion to support these programs. According to the organization, in 2023 it helped finance the distribution of 227 million
insecticide-treated nets to combat
malaria
Malaria is a Mosquito-borne disease, mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects vertebrates and ''Anopheles'' mosquitoes. Human malaria causes Signs and symptoms, symptoms that typically include fever, Fatigue (medical), fatigue, vomitin ...
, provided anti-tuberculosis treatment for 7.1 million people, supported 25 million people on antiretroviral therapy for AIDS, and since its founding saved 65 million lives worldwide.
The Global Fund is a financing mechanism rather than an implementing agency. Programs are implemented by in-country partners such as ministries of health, while the Global Fund secretariat, whose staff only have an office in Geneva, monitor the programs. Implementation is overseen by Country Coordinating Mechanisms, country-level committees consisting of in-country stakeholders that need to include, according to Global Fund requirements, a broad spectrum of representatives from government, NGOs, faith-based organizations, the private sector, and people living with the diseases. This system has kept the Global Fund secretariat smaller than other international bureaucracies. The model has also raised concerns about conflict of interest, as some of the stakeholders represented on the Country Coordinating Mechanisms may also receive money from the Global Fund, either as grant recipients, sub-recipients, private persons (e.g. for travel or participation at seminars) or contractors.
In January 2025, President Donald Trump’s administration implemented a comprehensive freeze on new funding for most foreign aid programs, including contributions to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. This action has raised concerns about the potential impact on global health initiatives, as the U.S. has been a significant donor to the Global Fund. In response, the Global Fund is seeking to increase private sector contributions to mitigate potential shortfalls resulting from reduced government funding.
Creation
At the end of the 20th century, international political will to improve coordinated efforts to fight the world's deadliest infectious diseases began to materialize. US Ambassador to the UN
Richard Holbrooke recognized early on that diseases such as AIDS and Malaria posed as national security threat and advocated for policy that would shore up against those threats. Through various multilateral fora, consensus around creating a new international financial vehicle to combat these diseases emerged. In this context the
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Gen ...
(WHO) called for a "Massive Attack on Diseases of Poverty" in December 1999. The original concept suggested tackling "malaria, tuberculosis, unsafe pregnancy, AIDS, diarrheal diseases, acute respiratory infections and measles". This list would steadily narrow to only include the three diseases the Global Fund fights today: HIV/AIDS, TB, and malaria.
In April 2001, in Abuja, Nigeria at a summit of African leaders,
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan
Kofi Atta Annan (8 April 193818 August 2018) was a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. He was the founder a ...
made the first explicit public call by a highly visible global leader for this new funding mechanism, proposing "the creation of a Global Fund, dedicated to the battle against HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases".
Secretary General Annan made the first contribution to the Global Fund in 2001. Having just been named the recipient of the 2001
Philadelphia Liberty Medal, Annan announced he would donate his US$100,000 award to the Global Fund "war chest" he had just proposed creating. In June 2001 the
United Nations General Assembly
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; , AGNU or AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as its main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ. Currently in its Seventy-ninth session of th ...
endorsed the creation of a global fund to fight HIV/AIDS.
The G8 formally endorsed the call for the creation of the Global Fund at its summit in July 2001 in
Genoa, Italy, although pledges were significantly lower than the US$7 billion to US$10 billion annually Kofi Annan insisted was needed.
According to the G8's final communique, "At Okinawa last year, we pledged to make a quantum leap in the fight against infectious diseases and to break the vicious cycle between disease and poverty. To meet that commitment and to respond to the appeal of the UN General Assembly, we have launched with the UN Secretary-General a new Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. We are determined to make the Fund operational before the end of the year. We have committed $1.3 billion. The Fund will be a public-private partnership and we call on other countries, the private sector, foundations, and academic institutions to join with their own contributions – financially, in kind and through shared expertise."
The Global Fund's initial 18-member policy-setting board held its first meeting in January 2002, and issued its first call for proposals.
The first secretariat was established in January 2002 with Paul Ehmer serving as team leader, soon replaced by
Anders Nordstrom of Sweden who became the organization's interim executive director. By the time the Global Fund Secretariat became operational, the organization had received US$1.9 billion in pledges.
In March 2002, a panel of international public health experts was named to begin reviewing project proposals that same month. In April 2002, the Global Fund awarded its first batch of grants – worth US$378 million – to fight the three diseases in 31 countries.
Outcomes
The Global Fund’s investments have reduced deaths from HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria by 61% since 2002, saving 65 million lives. Recent efforts include lowering the cost of key treatments for drug-resistant TB by 55% and first-line HIV medications by 25%, while introducing a more effective insecticide-treated mosquito net. The Fund’s initiatives, including supporting 25 million people on antiretroviral medication, have saved $85 billion by reducing hospitalization and outpatient visits. Implementation evidence to support the scale-up of antiretroviral therapies in resource limited settings and has been instrumental in advocating for the protection of
U.S. global health funding to combat these diseases effectively.
Fundraising
Since the Global Fund was created in 2002, public sector contributions have constituted 95 percent of all financing raised; the remaining 5 percent comes from the
private sector
The private sector is the part of the economy which is owned by private groups, usually as a means of establishment for profit or non profit, rather than being owned by the government.
Employment
The private sector employs most of the workfo ...
or other financing initiatives such as
Product Red. The Global Fund states that from 2002 to July 2019, more than 60 donor governments pledged a total of US$51.2 billion and paid US$45.8 billion.
From 2001 through 2018, the largest contributor to fund was
global health funding by the United States, followed by
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
, the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
,
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
, and
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
.
The donor nations with the largest percent of
gross national income
The gross national income (GNI), previously known as gross national product (GNP), is the total amount of factor incomes earned by the residents of a country. It is equal to gross domestic product (GDP), plus factor incomes received from ...
contributed to the fund from 2008 through 2010 were
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
,
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...
, France, the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
, the
Netherlands
, Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
, and
Spain
Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...
.
Per law in the United States, funding for the Global Fund cannot exceed one-third of total contributions from all donors to the Global Fund.
The Global Fund typically raises and spends funds during three-year "replenishment" fund-raising periods. Its first replenishment was launched in 2005, the second in 2007, the third in 2010, the fourth in 2013, and the fifth in 2016. As part of the public-private partnership, all stakeholders play an important role in resource mobilisation efforts - including communities and civil society organisations. In 2011, at the 4th Partnership Forum held in São Paulo, Brazil, the Global Fund Advocates Network (GFAN) was founded. Following which regional entities - GFAN Africa and GFAN Asia-Pacific were also established.
Alarms were raised prior to the third replenishment meeting in October 2010 about a looming deficit in funding, which would have led to people undergoing ARV treatment losing access, increasing the chance of them becoming resistant to treatment.
UNAIDS
The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS; , ONUSIDA) is the main advocate for accelerated, comprehensive and coordinated global action on the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
The mission of UNAIDS is to lead, strengthen and support an ex ...
Executive Director
Michel Sidibé dubbed the scenario of a funding deficit an "HIV Nightmare". The Global Fund stated it needed at least US$20 billion for the third replenishment (covering programs 2011–2013), and US$13 billion just to "allow for the continuation of funding of existing programs".
Ultimately, US$11.8 billion was mobilized at the third replenishment meeting, with the United States being the largest contributor – followed by France, Germany, and Japan. The Global Fund stated the US$1.2 billion lack in funding would "lead to difficult decisions in the next three years that could slow down the effort to beat the three diseases".
In November 2011, the organization's board cancelled all new grants for 2012, only having enough money to support existing grants. However, following the Global Fund's May 2012 board meeting, it announced that an additional US$1.6 billion would be available in the 2012-2014 period for investment in programs.
In December 2013, the fourth replenishment meeting was held in Washington, D.C. US$12 billion was pledged in contributions from 25 countries, as well as the European Commission, private foundations, corporations, and faith-based organizations for the 2014–2016 period. It was the largest amount ever committed to fighting the three diseases.
The fifth replenishment meeting took place in September 2016 in
Montreal
Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...
, Canada, and was hosted by Canadian Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau. Donors pledged US$12.9 billion (at 2016 exchange rates) for the 2017–2019 period.
France held the sixth replenishment meeting in 2019 in
Lyon
Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...
, hosted by President
Emmanuel Macron
Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron (; born 21 December 1977) is a French politician who has served as President of France and Co-Prince of Andorra since 2017. He was Ministry of Economy and Finance (France), Minister of Economics, Industr ...
raising US$14.02 billion for 2020–2022.
The seventh replenishment meeting was hosted by the United States on 19–21 September 2022 in New York City hosted by President
Joe Biden
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who was the 46th president of the United States from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice p ...
, announced by Secretary of State
Antony Blinken
Antony John Blinken (born April 16, 1962) is an American lawyer and diplomat who served as the 71st United States secretary of state from 2021 to 2025. He previously served as Deputy National Security Advisor, deputy national security advisor ...
. The final total was a new record amount of funding, US$15.7 billion.
Leadership
Richard Feachem was named the Global Fund's first executive director in April 2002
and faced early criticism from activists for stating the Global Fund has "plenty" of money to start.
[Disease-fighting group gets off to rocky start, ''The Boston Globe'', July 1, 2002.]
Feachem served from July 2002 through March 2007. Dr.
Michel Kazatchkine was then selected as executive director over the Global Fund's architect,
David Nabarro, even though Nabarro was "considered the strongest of three shortlisted candidates to head the Global Fund ... A selection committee has evaluated the three nominees' qualifications and ranked 'Nabarro first, Kazatchkine second and (Alex) Cotinho third,' according to a Fund source."
In September 2011, the
AIDS Healthcare Foundation
AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) is a Los Angeles-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and advocacy services. As of 2024, AHF operates about 400 clinics, 69 outpatient healthcare centers, 62 pharma ...
called for Kazatchkine's resignation in the wake of isolated yet unprecedented reports of "waste, fraud, and corruption" in order that "reforms may begin in earnest". In January 2012, Kazatchkine ultimately declared his resignation, following the decision made by the Global Fund board in November 2011 to appoint a general manager, leaving Kazatchkine's role to that of chief fund-raiser and public advocate. Communications later disclosed by the United States government stated that Kazatchkine's performance was deemed unsatisfactory by the Global Fund board, notably in relation to the funding of activities related to the First Lady of France at the time,
Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.
Following Kazatchkine's resignation, the Global Fund announced the appointment of Gabriel Jaramillo, the former chairman and chief executive officer of Sovereign Bank, to the newly created position of general manager. Jaramillo, who had retired one year earlier, had since served as a Special Advisor to the Office of the Special Envoy for Malaria of the Secretary General of the United Nations, and was a member of the high-level independent panel that looked at the Global Fund's fiduciary controls and oversight mechanisms. Jaramillo reorganized and reduced Global Fund staff in response to the previous year's critics of the Global Fund.
Dr.
Mark R. Dybul was appointed executive director in November 2012. He previously served as the United States Global AIDS Coordinator, leading the implementation of the
President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), and went on to be co-director of the Center for Global Health and Quality at Georgetown University Medical Center after he ended his appointment in 2017.
A nominating process to find a successor to Dybul ran into trouble in 2017 because nominees had spoken out against
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...
as a candidate for president of the United States. The Global Fund board named Global Fund Chief of Staff Marijke Wijnroks of the Netherlands as interim executive director while the nominating process restarted.
The Global Fund board selected banker
Peter Sands as executive director in 2017. He assumed the role in 2018.
Operations
The Global Fund was formed as an independent, non-profit foundation under Swiss law and hosted by the
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Gen ...
in January 2002. In January 2009, the organization became an administratively autonomous organization, terminating its administrative services agreement with the World Health Organization.
The initial objective of the Global Fund – to provide funding to countries on the basis of performance – was supposed to make it different from other international agencies at the time of its inception. Other organizations may have staff that assist with the implementation of grants. However, the Global Fund's five-year evaluation in 2009 concluded that without a standing body of technical staff, the Global Fund is not able to ascertain the actual results of its projects.
It has therefore tended to look at disbursements or the purchase of inputs as performance. It also became apparent shortly after the organization opened that a pure funding mechanism could not work on its own, and it began relying on other agencies – notably the World Health Organization – to support countries in designing and drafting their applications and in supporting implementation. The
United Nations Development Programme
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human development. The UNDP emphasizes on developing local capacity towar ...
, in particular, bears responsibility for supporting Global Fund-financed projects in a number of countries. As a result, the organisation is most accurately described as a financial supplement to the existing global health architecture rather than as a separate approach.
The Global Fund Secretariat in
Geneva
Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...
,
Switzerland
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
, employs about 1300 staff. There are neither offices nor staff based in other countries.
In 2013, the Global Fund adopted a new way of distributing its funds in countries to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Under this funding model, eligible countries receive an allocation of money every three years for possible use during the same three-year period. The total amount of all allocations across all countries depends on the amount contributed by governments and other donors through the "replenishment" fundraising during the same three-year period. The countries, through their Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM)), submit applications outlining how they will use the allocation, including selecting the main implementers of grants in countries called Principal Recipients (PR) to carry about programs within their respective countries. An independent Technical Review Panel (TRP) reviews the applications and there will be an iterative process towards the finalisation of the applications. Once the applications are approved, the Global Fund provides funding to the principal recipients based on achievement toward agreed indicators and actual expenses. Performance and expenses are periodically reviewed by a "local fund agent", which in most countries is an international financial audit company.
Governance
Board
The Global Fund board is the supreme governing body of the organisation and embodies the partnership approach to global health and incorporates leading stakeholders in an inclusive and effective way. The core functions of the Board include: strategy development; governance oversight; commitment of financial resources; assessment of organisational performance; risk management; and partnership engagement, resource mobilisation and advocacy.
The Board includes 20 voting members, with equal representation by implementers and donors. Non-governmental organisations; communities living with and/or affected by HIV, TB and malaria; the private sector; and private foundations are also represented as voting members. There are also eight non-voting members, including the board chair and vice-chair; representatives of partner organisations including the
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Gen ...
and
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...
; as well as the Additional Public Donors constituency.
The chair and vice-chair of the Board (together the "Board Leadership") lead the Board's strategic focus on its core functions. Their primary role is to manage the affairs of the Board, including ensuring that the Board is organised properly, functions effectively, and meets its obligations and responsibilities. Prior to the end of the term of the Board Leadership, an ad hoc Board Leadership Nominations Committee (BLNC) is formed, and in 2018, for the first time, the BLNC implemented a process which interviewed finalised candidates in person for the Board Leadership.
The current Board Leadership is made up of Lady Roslyn Morauta and
Bience Gawanas, who assumed their tenures in May 2023.
Committees
The work of the Board operates through three committees where each constituency should be represented in at least one standing committee, which are the Audit and Finance Committee (AFC), Ethics and Governance Committee (EGC), and the Strategy Committee (SC).
Corruption and misuse of funds
In January 2011, the
Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City.
Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...
reported vast corruption in some programs financed by the Global Fund, citing findings of the Global Fund Office of the Inspector General – an auditing unit independent from the Global Fund Secretariat – that up to two-thirds of funds in some of the reviewed grants were lost to fraud.
The Office of the Inspector General report showed that systematic fraud patterns had been used across countries.
The Global Fund responded to the story with a news release, stating, "The Global Fund has zero tolerance for corruption and actively seeks to uncover any evidence of misuse of its funds. It deploys some of the most rigorous procedures to detect fraud and fight corruption of any organization financing development."
After the Associated Press story, a number of op-eds, including one by
Michael Gerson
Michael John Gerson (May 15, 1964 – November 17, 2022) was an American journalist and speechwriter. He was a neoconservative op-ed columnist for ''The Washington Post'', a Policy Fellow with One Campaign, a visiting fellow with the Center fo ...
published in ''The Washington Post'' in February 2011, sought to put the controversy surrounding the misuse of Global Fund grants in perspective. Gerson stated, "The two-thirds figure applies to one element of one country's grant – the single most extreme example in the world. Investigations are ongoing, but the $34 million in fraud that has been exposed represents about three-tenths of 1 percent of the money the fund has distributed. The targeting of these particular cases was not random; they were the most obviously problematic, not the most typical."
Global Fund spokesman Jon Liden told the Associated Press, "The messenger is being shot to some extent. We would contend that we do not have any corruption problems that are significantly different in scale or nature to any other international financing institution."
Previous reviews of grants and the Global Fund had shown substantial misconduct in some programs, lack of adequate risk management, and operational inefficiency of the Global Fund. Cases of corruption had also been found in several African countries such as Mali, Mauritania, Djibouti, and Zambia.
Sweden, the Global Fund's 11th-biggest contributor at the time (2011), suspended its US$85 million annual donation until the corruption problems were resolved.
Germany, the third-biggest contributor at the time, also blocked any financing until a special investigation was complete. Funding was eventually restored.
Other cases of abuse of funds, corruption and mismanagement in a series of grants forced the Global Fund to suspend or terminate the grants after such dealings became publicly known in
Uganda
Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the ...
,
Zimbabwe
file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map
Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...
,
Philippines
The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...
, and
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...
.
In February 2011, ''Financial Times'' reported that the Global Fund board failed to act previously on concerns over accountability including on the conclusion of an external evaluation in 2009 that criticized the organization's weak procurement practices.
Warnings of inadequate controls had also been reported periodically. ''Financial Times'' also reported that its own review found that neither Global Fund staff nor "local fund agents" (the entities entrusted with audit-like tasks at the country level) had noticed the deficiencies reported by the inspector general.
After pushing countries to reclaim stolen funds from the parties responsible and recovering only about half, the organization began in 2014 as a last resort reducing future grants by twice the amount of misappropriated funds. As of February 2016, this resulted in US$14.8 million of reductions (collectively) for Bangladesh, Guatemala, Nigeria and Sri Lanka.. Current status is reported to the Global Fund Board at least annually. The Global Fund's Office of the Inspector General audited the recoveries process in 2020.
In 2020, the Global Fund rejected Kenya's application for US$114 million due to a lack of transparency in the selection of firms to manage the fund.
References
Further reading
* van Kerkhoff, Lorrae; Szlezák, Nicole A. (2016). "The role of innovative global institutions in linking knowledge and action". ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences'' 113 (17): 4603–4608.
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Global Fund, The
International medical and health organizations
HIV/AIDS organizations
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Organisations based in Geneva
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