MORE THAN THREE GRANTS IN FOUR ARE PERFORMING WELL, REPORT SAYS

Author:

Bernard Rivers

Article Type:

Article Number: 4

ABSTRACT According to the Global Fund, at the end of 2009, 78% of grants were performing well, 19% demonstrated inadequate performance, and 3% showed "unacceptable" performance.

Among the 436 grants that were reviewed to the end of 2009 in preparation for a decision on continued funding, 78% have performed well (i.e., received a rating of A or B1). This is one of the findings of “The Global Fund 2010: Innovation and Impact,” a report on results released by the Global Fund on 8 March 2010. Grants are rated on the following scale:

A Met or exceeded expectations

B1 Adequate

B2 Inadequate, but potential demonstrated

C Unacceptable

The Global Fund says that only 3% of grants were rated C (“unacceptable”). This means that 19%, about one grant in five, were rated B2 (inadequate, but potential demonstrated).

According to the results report, 84% of grants managed by civil society principal recipients (PRs) were rated A or B1, vs. 75% for grants managed by government PRs. In terms of a regional breakout of the results, there was some variation, as shown in Table 5, below.

Table 5: Percentage of grants by rating, for each region, through 2009

Region	Grant ratings
	A	B1	B2	C
Asia	29%	52%	16%	3%
Eastern Europe and Central Asia	36%	61%	3%	0%
Latin America and Caribbean	25%	51%	23%	2%
Middle East and Northern Africa	14%	66%	20%	0%
Sub-Saharan Africa	21%	49%	25%	5%

The Global Fund notes that while 70% of grants in sub-Saharan Africa are performing well (i.e., rated A or B1), the proportion of poorly performing grants rated B2 or C, at 30%, is higher than in any other region. The Fund says that it is investigating the reasons for these differences. In addition, the Global Fund says that grants in fragile countries are performing only slightly less well than other grants. Finally, according to the Global Fund, countries with poorly performing grants have usually been able to respond rapidly to address the problems which led to poor performance.

Performance against targets for the “top ten” programme areas

The Global Fund also rated performance of these 436 grants against targets that had been set within what it calls its “top ten programmatic areas.” The Fund says that both HIV and TB grants performed well in this analysis, while results for malaria grants were mixed. Table 6, below, provides details.

Table 6: Grant performance in key programme areas through 2009

Programme areas		Achievement against targets (cumulative)
HIV-related	People currently on ART	99%
	Counselling and testing	122%
	PMTCT	84%
	Support for orphans and other vulnerable children	140%
TB-related	DOTS	101%
	MDR-TB treatment	84%
Malaria-related	LLINs distributed	83%
	Anti-malarial treatment	61%
Cross-cutting	Care and support	113%
	People trained	105%

ART = antiretroviral therapy / DOTS = directly observed treatment, short course (for TB)

MDR = Multiple drug resistant / LLINs = long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets

PMTCT = prevention of mother-to-child transmission

The Global Fund says that it is currently devoting particular attention to further improving the performance of malaria and PMTCT programmes.

“The Global Fund 2010: Innovation and Impact” is available at www.theglobalfund.org/en/replenishment/hague/documents