The Global Fund Board has provisionally suspended the submission of new proposals through the rolling continuation channel (RCC). The decision was made using email voting. The Board may make the suspension permanent when it discusses the matter more fully at its next meeting in November 2009. RCC proposals, which are submitted by invitation only, are a means for requesting continued funding once grants have reached the end of their first five years.

The decision was made because of financial pressures facing the Global Fund. Earlier this year, the Board established a Working Group on Managing the Tension Between Demand and Supply in a Resource-Constrained Environment. Given that at its November meeting the Global Fund Board will be approving not only Round 9 proposals but also proposals from the first learning wave of National Strategy Applications (NSAs), the Working Group recommended - and the Board approved - that the RCC be suspended (or, potentially, permanently ended) in order to increase the amount of money available in 2010 to fund approved proposals for Round 9 and the NSAs.

In formulating its recommendation, the Working Group noted that the discontinuation of the RCC is likely to be proposed to the Global Fund Board in November as part of the funding architecture review currently underway. That review is expected to recommend new means for continuing some grants beyond five years.

Although the Board decided to approve the suspension of the RCC, it allowed the following RCC proposals to proceed:

• any RCC proposals submitted prior to 21 August 2009;
• any RCC proposals submitted in response to an invitation to submit a new proposal as a result of a determination by the Secretariat prior to 1 August 2009 that an expiring grant qualified for RCC; and
• any RCC proposals submitted in response to an invitation to re-submit a proposal due to an earlier RCC proposal having received a Category 3A recommendation from the Technical Review Panel (TRP).

The Global Fund Board approved proposals from Wave 6 of the RCC in May 2009. The Board is expected to approve Wave 7 proposals shortly. With respect to Wave 8, the Global Fund Secretariat review to determine which grants are eligible to apply for RCC took place prior to 1 August 2009, so this wave will be allowed to proceed (though the date for submission of Wave 8 proposals will be delayed until after the Board has approved Round 9 proposals). Wave 9 is the first RCC wave affected by the suspension.

The Working Group estimated that this decision will save $300 million in 2010.