The board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is set to meet again in November to flesh out details of a new funding model, which the board adopted at its 27th meeting last week.
Among the details to be discussed is the creation of Country Bands that will see the organization allocating its resources to countries with the highest disease burden, but have “least ability to pay.” The Global Fund Secretariat, with recommendations from the Strategy, Investment and Impact Committee, will be in charge of determining the composition of the Country Band, for approval at the board’s 28th meeting on Nov. 15-16.
The new model aims to increase applicants’ chances of success with their applications. Following a country dialogue with the Secretariat, country coordinating mechanisms will be required to develop a concept note that will include the amount they need. Based on consultations and feedback from the Secretariat, the concept note will go to the Technical Review Panel, which could then suggest ways to improve the proposal or recommend its approval, Director of Communications Seth Faison told Devex in an email.
“A portion of available funds will be used to incentivize ambitious investment cases,” he added.
Once all details are clear, the board may consider setting aside 10 percent of all unallocated funds for “special situations, such as those that need quick response [and those] not ‘adequately accommodated’ for with regular long-term funding,” Faison explained.
“It’s great to see the Board walk the talk,” General Manager Gabriel Jaramillo said in a news release. “Now we can develop a new business model that will be simpler for implementers, will move resources faster to save lives, and will also give taxpayers in donor nations confidence that the Fund is responding to the times.”
In the meantime, the financing institution will base funding levels on countries’ disease burden, based on historical funding levels. This, however, will only be temporary and will be replaced by a measure that “can be used to estimate disease burden and financial demand across all three diseases” within a year. This will begin once the model is ready in 2013.
The Global Fund is set for a midterm replenishment meeting in late November, the same month the board is expected to announced the fund’s next executive director and decide on the future of the first phase of the Affordable Medicines Facility – malaria, which expands people’s access to anti-malarial medicines at much affordable rates.
A “full replenishment” meeting is expected in September next year.
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About the author
Jenny Lei Ravelo@JennyLeiRavelo
Jenny Lei Ravelo is a Devex Senior Reporter based in Manila. She covers global health, with a particular focus on the World Health Organization, and other development and humanitarian aid trends in Asia Pacific. Prior to Devex, she wrote for ABS-CBN, one of the largest broadcasting networks in the Philippines, and was a copy editor for various international scientific journals. She received her journalism degree from the University of Santo Tomas.
