Global Fund
Before departing for the weekend, we’re going to bump this blog post to the top of the feed. If you haven’t yet, please read it:
We’re big supporters of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria here at ONE, with so many of our members helping raise awareness about the great work it’s doing to save lives. Despite fantastic results — providing AIDS treatment for 3 million people, anti-TB treatment for 7.7 million people, and 160 million insecticide-treated bed nets for prevention of malaria – the Global Fund is under attack.
Columnist Mike Gerson has just written an excellent column on this issue that’s published in today’s Washington Post. We encourage you to read it, and share it widely!
We at ONE have been working hard to respond to this wave of negative coverage of the Fund, which is based almost entirely on one initial press report that took incidents in a few countries where funding was misappropriated – incidents caught and identified by the Fund itself! – and twisted them to imply that fraud was widespread. We blogged here on this, joining other allies in trying to get out the facts. It’s been tough, with so many being all too willing to believe the worst.
We’re also pleased to hear that the Global Fund announced today that it is taking some extra measures to increase its vigilance, including an external review of all of its financial safety systems. Those already in place are robust, but this might help assuage the donors. The Global Fund needs to deal with this problem to be sure, but its most important work is to speed resources to countries fighting three raging epidemics and the sooner it can get back to that the better.
This post is also featured at the Huffington Post.
Over the weekend, the Associated Press filed a story about corruption involving a small number of grants made by the Global Fund, an international partnership that channels funds to fight AIDS, TB and malaria from donors, like the United States, to some of the poorest countries in the world. It’s always interesting to me when stories create news with misused facts and salacious headlines. So I thought it might be useful to have a little background and perspective from someone who’s spent a lot of time with the Global Fund.
The AP report was correct in saying that the Global Fund’s Inspector General has taken an aggressive approach to rooting out and publicizing incidents of fraud and abuse, but the story erred by extrapolating the findings in a few countries to tarnish the entire grant portfolio. Let’s put this to rest: there is absolutely no evidence that there is widespread fraud or corruption of Fund grants. On the contrary, of the $13 billion disbursed by the Global Fund to date, only a portion has been audited by the Global Fund’s inspector general, and of that only a relatively small amount — US $43 million — has been rescinded.
Now just because the percentage of grants found to be misused is relatively small doesn’t mean it’s okay — just the opposite. That’s still a lot of money, and it should piss off anyone who cares about the world’s poorest. We should not rest until all taxpayer supported programs can report no misuse of funds — including those administered right here at home.
While I was thinking about this over my morning coffee, I spied a New York Times front-page article that started, “Since the government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, taxpayers have spent more than $160 million defending the mortgage finance companies and their former top executives in civil lawsuits accusing them of fraud.” Now I’m willing to bet that all those gloating over the Global Fund stories won’t get nearly so exercised about this kind of pervasive corruption.
I also don’t want to fall into the trap of denying there are problems. We will undoubtedly hear about other instances of abuse. So I’m thankful that the Global Fund and its partners, especially the countries that desperately need the money, take this all very seriously.
There’s already lots of work underway to continue to make improvements. The Fund is pursuing suspected corruption aggressively, usually in close cooperation with local authorities: corrupt officials are going to jail, funds are being returned, new safeguards are being put in place. At the same time, the Global Fund is working hard to strike a balance, continuing its policy of zero tolerance for corruption while not becoming so risk adverse that it can’t get its job done.
So in the end what’s the conclusion? We should celebrate the openness of the Global Fund, even if the information it provides can be abused. We should fight hard to support programs that improve global health AND governance and transparency — fighting for funds needed to save lives and at the same time to build robust systems and checks and balances needed to guaranty their effective use. And we should feel proud that we’ve helped the Global Fund weather this storm and continue its amazing work to save lives.
Here’s some really cool news — we just caught wind that Rwanda is donating $1 million to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
According to a press release, Rwanda is the fourth African country to contribute to this year’s replenishment, which has received $11.7 billion in commitments from both the private and public sector for the next three years.
“Even a modest additional investment can save millions of lives, improve overall health of the population, strengthen health systems and provide economic gains through increased productivity of the workforce,” said Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda.
Rwanda has been very active in engaging with the Global Fund and is set to reach its UN Millennium Development Goals targets by 2015. Read more about their Global Fund donation on the Africa News website.
At ONE, we never ask for your money — we just ask for your voice as part of our advocacy work around poverty alleviation. But, we have to admit, it’s pretty cool when outside sources encourage donations to some of the effective programs we care deeply about.
In this month’s issue of Glamour magazine, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, our sister organization (RED) and the GAVI Alliance were mentioned in the article, “31 Days of Giving: Easy moves to make the world a better place.” The piece also features a number of ONE partner organizations, including Partners in Health, Water.org, OXFAM and Heifer International. As we enter into the busy holiday season, check it out — it’s in newsstands now!
In case you missed it, the New York Times published an editorial on Saturday on the disappointing outcome of the Global Fund replenishment, urging donor countries to “ante up” and Congress to consider adding more to its donation. “This effort is essential for global health and the stability of fragile nations,” said the Times.
We couldn’t agree more. Donors from both the private and public sector were able to contribute $11.7 billion to the Global Fund over the next three years, but didn’t come close to reaching the Fund’s lowest financial scenario of $13 billion, and certainly nowhere near $20 billion, their target goal.
“The money pledged will be enough to ensure that anyone now being treated will continue to get help,” said the Times. But “the rate at which the fund has been expanding its work will be greatly slowed.”
If you haven’t yet, please read the outcome analysis from our global health policy expert Todd Summers, who attended the replenishment meeting in New York City earlier this month. His piece includes a breakdown of donor contributions and next steps for ONE members.
Although we can’t predict what will happen next, one thing is certain — our work with the Global Fund is not over yet. It’s great to see that mainstream media organizations like the New York Times are supporting increased funding for the Fund, and as advocates for the world’s poorest, we have to keep the pressure up.
After months of campaigning from ONE members around the world, and after a two-day pledging conference in New York, the dust has finally settled on the Global Fund’s third replenishment.
From left to right: Mr. Richard Manning, Replenishment Vice-Chair; UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon; Prof. Kazatchkine, Global Fund Executive Director; Dr. Debrework Zewdie, Global Fund Deputy Executive Director at the Third Voluntary Replenishment Meeting, 5 October 2010. © The Global Fund / John Rae
By the end of the meeting, donors had come forward with pledges totaling $9.2 billion, and the Global Fund’s secretariat anticipated that another $2.5 billion would come in from donors unable to make commitments at the meeting, bringing the total for the replenishment to $11.7 billion over the next three years.
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I’m here in New York, participating in the Global Fund’s replenishment meeting, and it’s been a busy morning with donors from the north and south making pledges to the Global Fund over the next three years. I’ll send along a detailed analysis from ONE’s perspective at the end of the day, but I wanted you to hear some major news from us first: The U.S. has just announced that it will pledge $4 billion over the next three years.
Ambassador Eric Goosby, head of the U.S.’ AIDS programs, said on behalf of the Obama Administration:
“We strongly support the Global Fund’s collaborative, country-driven, performance-based approach to fighting the three diseases, and we are proud to be the Global Fund’s largest donor.”
As you know, we’ve been campaigning hard with your support over the last few months for $6 billion over three years, so this obviously falls short of what we had called for, and we are disappointed. We recognize that this is still a solid increase given the current economic environment, and we are glad to see the U.S. make its first-ever three-year pledge, but this funding level does not put us on track to meet two major health goals by 2015: the virtual elimination of mother-to-child transmission and the end of malaria deaths.
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