FINAL REPORTS RELEASED ON GLOBAL FUND FIVE-YEAR EVALUATION

Author:

Bernard Rivers

Article Type:

Article Number: 1

ABSTRACT The Global Fund recently released the results of the Health Impact Evaluation, the third and final area of study in the Five-Year Evaluation; and the Fund also released reports synthesising the overall evaluation findings.

After more than two years of work, the Global Fund Five-Year Evaluation has been completed. The Global Fund recently released several documents (a) providing the results of the third and final area of study in the evaluation; and (b) synthesising the overall evaluation findings.

Launched in November 2006, when the Global Fund was approaching its fifth anniversary, the evaluation was organised around three study areas:

• Study Area 1 – Organisational efficiency and effectiveness of the Global Fund
• Study Area 2 – Effectiveness of the Global Fund partner environment
• Study Area 3 – Impact on HIV, tuberculosis and malaria

The evaluation was planned and implemented by two international teams of evaluators led by Macro International Inc., a research and management consultant firm. The evaluation was overseen by the Technical Evaluation Research Group (TERG), an advisory body providing independent assessment and advice to the Global Fund Board on issues related to monitoring and evaluation.

The two reports on Study Area 3 recently released by the Global Fund were:

“Final Report – Global Fund Five-Year Evaluation: Study Area 3 – The Impact of Collective Efforts on the Reduction of the Disease Burden of AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria,” May 2009

“Technical Evaluation Reference Group Summary Paper: Study Area 3 – Health Impact of Scaling Up Against HIV, Tuberculosis and Malaria: Evaluation of the Current Situation and Trends in 18 Countries,” April 2009

This first document is the report from the evaluators, Macro International Inc. The second document is a report from the TERG. It provides a summary of the Macro International report, plus the TERG’s assessment of that report.

The two reports synthesising the findings of all three study areas, recently released by the Global Fund, were:

“The Five-Year Evaluation of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria – Syntheses of Study Areas 1, 2 and 3,” March 2009

“Technical Evaluation Reference Group Summary Paper: Synthesis Report of the Five-Year Evaluation of the Global Fund,” April 2009

The first document is the report from the evaluators, Macro International Inc. The second document is a report from the TERG that provides a summary of the Macro International report, discusses the limitations of the evaluation that was conducted, identifies areas that the TERG thinks need further investigation, and presents a list of “key issues and priorities” that the TERG has identified from the evaluation findings.

All four documents are available on the Global Fund website at www.theglobalfund.org/en/terg/evaluations/5year.

In the two articles that follow, we report on the findings from Study Area 3, and on the highlights of the synthesis reports.

Editor’s Note: GFO recently carried an article on the results of the Study Area 2 evaluation. See Issue 101, available at www.aidspan.org/gfo.