At its fourteenth board meeting held in Guatemala from Tuesday morning through yesterday afternoon, Friday, the Global Fund board approved 85 Round 6 grants that will cost $846 million over the first two years and $2,519 m. over five years. (For a complete list of approved and non-approved proposals, see below.) As a result of recent new pledges, the Fund has sufficient money to pay for all grants that were recommended by the Technical Review Panel.

In Round 6, the two-year cost of all eligible submitted proposals was down 24% from the Round 5 level; but the cost of those actually approved was up 17% from the Round 5 level. This was mainly because the percentage of proposals approved went up from 31% in Round 5 to 43% in Round 6. The average cost of the first two years of each Round 6 approved proposal was $10 million, down from $11.5 million in Round 5

In Round 6, an unusually high 62% of TB proposals were approved, up from 46% in Round 5. The percentages of HIV/AIDS and malaria proposals approved were 39% and 32%, respectively.

The success rates by region ranged from 24% (4 proposals approved out of 17 submitted) in Latin America and the Caribbean, to 77% (10 out of 13) in the Western Pacific. The Western Pacific has had the highest success rates in all of the last three Rounds.

The Board's decisions as to which proposals to approve was, as always, entirely based on the advice it received from the Technical Review Panel (TRP), an independent body of 26 experts from around the world. No board members or Secretariat employees are members of the TRP.

The following tables summarize Round 6 results.

Table 1: Results by Round

Table 2: Disease Component Results by Round

Table 3: Region Results by Round

Table 4: Outcome of Secretariat Screening Panel Review of Eligibility, by Round

Other highlights of Round 6 include the following:

• The TRP commented, "In some cases, for reasons the TRP cannot comprehend, some applicants appear to repeatedly ignore the TRP's advice and comments on prior proposals. These are in stark contrast to the many applicants in Round 6 who provided specific and adequate responses to all or most of the weaknesses identified in their prior proposals. Where this was the case, these proposals usually tended to be recommended for funding in Round 6. The TRP believes that directly and comprehensively addressing the problems identified in a prior unsuccessful proposal is perhaps the most effective approach to ensuring a successful new application."
• In Round 6, three approved proposals had five-year budgets in excess of $100 million. These were from India (HIV/AIDS, $259 m.), Ukraine (HIV/AIDS, $151 m.) and South Africa (HIV/AIDS, $103 m.). And eight non-approved proposals had five-year budgets in excess of $100 million. These were from Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Madagascar, Tanzania (2 proposals) and Uganda (2 proposals).
• As always, and as required by the Board, the TRP did not take into account availability of funds when it decided which proposals to recommend for approval.
• The budget breakdown of the approved Round 6 proposals was: drugs 15% (down from 21% in Round 5); commodities 22%; planning and administration 18%; human resources 13%; infrastructure 11%; training 12%; and other 9%.
• The Round 6 success rate is equal to the highest ever success rate of 43%, which was recorded in Round 2.
• The TRP commented, "The trend, noted in Round 5, away from very large and ambitious scale up programs of antiretroviral therapy was again a feature of Round 6. In this Round, the vast majority of HIV/AIDS proposals were of a more modest nature, perhaps reflecting the understanding by applicant countries of the difficulties of implementing very large scale programs over a relatively short period of time."
• Further details are available below.