Another $1.38 billion in grants from 2017–2019 allocations approved by Global Fund Board

Author:

David Garmaise

Article Type:

Article Number: 3

Cumulative amount awarded to date: $7.64 billion

ABSTRACT The Global Fund Board has approved another batch of grants, the fourth from the 2017–2019 allocations. The value of the grants was $1.38 billion, bringing the cumulative amount awarded to date to $7.64 billion. The Board approved 26 grants emanating from 18 funding requests submitted by 12 countries. Interventions worth $447.9 million were added to the Unfunded Quality Demand Register.

On 13 December 2017, the Global Fund Board approved grants worth $1.38 billion from the 2017-2019 allocations. This was the fourth batch of approvals from the 2017–2019 allocations, and brings the cumulative amount awarded to date to $7.64 billion.

The Board approved funding for 26 grants emanating from 18 funding requests submitted by 12 countries. The Board was acting on the recommendations of the Technical Review Panel (TRP) and the Grant Approvals Committee (GAC).

The $1.38 billion total included five matching funds requests valued at $32.7 million. Interventions totaling $447.9 million were added to the Unfunded Quality Demand (UQD) Register. Domestic commitments to the programs represented by the approved grants amounted to $3.30 billion.

See the table for details.

Table: Grants approved from the 2017-2019 allocations – Fourth batch ($US)

Applicant	Com- ponent	Grant name	Principal recipient	Amount approved	UQD	Domestic commitment
Burundi	Malaria	BDI-M-UNDP	UNDP	36,656,018		9,765,895
	TB/HIV	BDI-C-UNDP	UNDP	35,644,804		7,082,395
Ethiopia	RSSH	ETH-S-FMOH	Ministry of Health	27,581,142	5,081,934	195,000,000
Guyana	HIV	GUY-H-MOH	Ministry of Health	4,539,985		6,854,411
India	Malaria	IND-M-NVBDCP	NVBDCP	65,006,452	42,677,110	221,522,728
	HIV	IND-H-IHAA	Intl. H/A Alliance	20,566,233	72,275,241	1,297,342,193
		IND-H-NACO	NACO	111,525,269
		IND-H-PLAN	Plan International	12,027,687
		IND-H-SAATHII	SAATHII	7,001,811
Indonesia	HIV	IDN-H-MOH	Ministry of Health	60,661,386	37,841,774	261,600,000
		IDN-H-SPIRITI	Yayasan Spiritia	32,116,331
	TB	IDN-T-AISYIYA	C.B. of AISYIYA	14,768,459		334,500,000
		IDN-T-MOH	Ministry of Health	103,034,752
Liberia	HIV	LBR-H-PSI	Pop. Services Intl.	6,000,000		N/A
Mali	HIV	MLI-H-HCNLS	Haut CNLS	41,111,557		16,164,497
Morocco	HIV	MAR-H-MOH	Ministry of Health	13,924,839	2,519,350	38,783,333
	TB	MAR-T-MOH	Ministry of Health	2,201,595	758,259	24,496,894
Nigeria	Malaria	NGA-M-CRS	Catholic Relief Serv.	273,923,625	165,401,639	635,746,924
		NGA-M-NMEP	Ministry of Health	9,397,231
Pakistan	HIV	PAK-H-NACP	Nat. AIDS Control Prog.	17,478,571	14,663,237	28,250,000
		PAK-H-NZT	Nai Zindagi Trust	17,477,536
South Sudan	HIV	SSD-H-UNDP	UNDP	32,681,295	6,632,391	7,744,309
	Malaria	SSD-M-PSI	Pop. Services Intl.	45,000,000	16,816,028	8,416,630
	TB	SSD-T-UNDP	UNDP	9,000,000	3,247,747	1,122,217
Tanzania	HIV	TZA-H-MOF	Ministry of Finance	349,412,557	37,287,038	207,958,795
	TB	TZA-T-MOF	Ministry of Finance	30,495,717

Notes:

1. Amounts shown are upper ceilings.
2. For countries using euros, the amounts were converted to U.S. dollars at a rate of 1.1765 euros to the dollar.
3. The Ethiopia approved amount consists of allocated funding of $24,000,000 plus $3,581,142 from the Government of Spain through a Debt2Health agreement.
4. The domestic commitment shown for Ethiopia is for the three diseases.
5. The amounts approved include matching funds requests in the amounts of $3,072,115 and $278,937 for Indonesia HIV (IDN-H-MOH and IDN-H-SPIRITI, respectively); $836,523 and $14,550,152 for Indonesia TB (IDN-T-AISYIYA and IDN-T-MOH, respectively); $8,000,000 for Tanzania HIV; and $6,000,000 for Tanzania TB

 

As is customary, the approved funding is subject to availability of funding and will be committed in annual tranches. Where more than one grant has been approved for a component, the Secretariat has the authority to redistribute the approved amounts among the grants (except that any material change must be validated by the TRP).

Of the 18 funding requests, six were of the program continuation variety; six were full review and six were tailored. Six of the funding requests were from Window 1 (20 March), 11 from Window 2 (23 May) and just one from Window 3 (28 August).

In its report to the Board, the GAC said that the grants were found to be disbursement-ready by the Secretariat after a thorough review process and in consultation with partners. During grant-making, the GAC said, each applicant refined the grant documents, addressed issues raised by the TRP and GAC, and sought efficiencies where possible. The GAC endorsed the reinvestment of efficiencies in one of the following: (a) the same grant, in areas recommended by the TRP; (b) other disease components of the same applicant – where the TRP did not recommend reinvesting in the same grant; or (c) the general funding pool.

Judging by the end dates shown in the GAC report, more than three-quarters of the approved grants had a proposed start date of 1 January 2018. Since Board approval came only on 13 December, there won’t be much time to get the grant confirmations signed by 1 January. It is possible that some countries will need to ask for short extensions of their current grants. However, we don’t have any information to the effect that extensions will be required. We are reminded of the fact that, as we said above, when the grants go to the Board for approval, they are already disbursement ready.

See separate article in  this issue on the approval of the Nigeria malaria grants.

More to come

There were 169 grants approved in the first four batches. The GAC met one more time in 2017, on 6-7 December, where it was expected to review 14 grants; a decision on these grants is expected on 12 January 2018.

Three more windows have been scheduled for 2018, as follows (with the TRP meeting dates shown in parentheses):

Window 4 –– 7 February (TRP: 19-29 March)
Window 5 –– 30 April (TRP: 3-11 June)
Window 6 –– 6 August (TRP: 9-21 September)

Grant extensions

The Board approved costed extensions for four TB and HIV Nigeria grants involving total additional funding of $166.9 million (taken from the 2017-2019 allocation). See separate article in this issue.

Additional matters

In its report, the GAC advised the Board that the Secretariat had approved an extension of the closure period of an HIV grant to Bosnia and Hercegovina “to facilitate the responsible closure and transition” of the grant.

The GAC also advised the Board that it had approved a 12-month extension to Iraq’s TB grant to enable essential services to continue until the grant is fully integrated into the second phase of the Middle East Response regional (multi-country) grant in January 2019.

Aidspan reported on the approval of the first batch of grant approvals for 2017-2019 here; on the second batch here; and on the third batch here.

Most of the information for this article was taken from Board Document GF-B38-ER03, Report of the Secretariat’s Grant Approvals Committee. This document is not available on the Global Fund website.