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Global Fund Board approves fifth batch of country grants from 2017-2019 allocations, in the amount of $1.22 billion
GFO Issue 329

Global Fund Board approves fifth batch of country grants from 2017-2019 allocations, in the amount of $1.22 billion

Author:

David Garmaise

Article Type:
News

Article Number: 6

Cumulative amount awarded to date: $8.86 billion

ABSTRACT The Global Fund Board has approved another $1.22 billion in funding for country grants, bringing the cumulative amount awarded to date to $8.86 billion. A fifth batch was approved on 12 January, consisting of 33 grants emanating from 22 funding requests from 16 countries. Interventions worth $383.3 million were added to the Unfunded Quality Demand Register. Also approved as part of Batch 5 was a multi-country grant for Southern Africa.

On 12 January 2018, the Global Fund Board approved 33 country grants worth $1.22Ā billion. This was the fifth batch of approvals from the 2017ā€“2019 allocations, and brings the cumulative amount awarded to date to $8.86 billion.

The 33 grants were from 22 funding requests submitted by 16 countries. The Board was acting on the recommendations of the Technical Review Panel (TRP) and the Grant Approvals Committee (GAC).

The $1.22 billion total included six matching funds requests valued at $24.2 million. Interventions totaling $383.3 million were added to the Unfunded Quality Demand (UQD) Register. Domestic commitments to the programs represented by the approved grants amounted to $2.29 billion.

See Tables 1 and 2 for details.

 

Table 1: Country grants approved from the 2017-2019 allocations ā€“ā€“ Fifth batch ā€“ā€“ Aā€“K ($US)

Applicant Comp. Grant name Principal recipient Amount approved UQD Domestic commitment
Azerbaijan TB AZE-T-MOH Ministry of Health 6,529,446 346,787 48,233,781
Cameroon HIV CMR-H-CMF C. N. Assoc. Fam. Welf. 26,264,891 30,195,705 74,660,590
CNMR-H-MOH Ministry of Health 101,946,377
TB CMR-T-MOH Ministry of Health 12,097,015 2,419,367
C.A.R. Malaria CAF-M-WVI World Vision Intl. 32,828,198 288,101
TB/HIV CAF-C-CRF Croix-Rouge Fr. 34,819,991 16,904,384 10,987,553
Ghana HIV GHA-H-WAPCAS W. A. Prog. AIDS & STIs 7,445,969 9,688,309 161,690,652
TB/HIV GHA-C-MOH Ministry of Health 76,502,454
Malaria GHA-M-AGAMal AngloGold Ashanti 15,884,008 47,679,165 491,061,978
GHA-M-MOH Ministry of Health 94,148,208
Guinea TB/HIV GIN-C-PLAN Plan International 14,550,605 2,315,427 22,848,873
India TB/HIV IND-C-WJCF Clinton Foundation 18,283,889 N/A N/A
TB IND-T-CHRI Centre Health Res. & Inn. 15,596,592 141,537,407 740,000,000
IND-T-CTD Ministry of Finance 201,344,390
IND-T-FIND F. for Inn. New Diag. 33,135,609
IND-T-IUATLD Intl. Union vs TB & L. D. 15,511,945
Kosovo HIV QNA-H-CDF Comm. Dev. Fund 1,751,226 518,349 3,710,723

Notes:

  1. Amounts shown are upper ceilings.
  2. For countries using euros, the amounts were converted to U.S. dollars at a rate of 1.2115 euros to the dollar.
  3. The domestic commitments shown are for the disease programs and exclude RSSH unless otherwise indicated.
  4. The amounts approved for Cameroon include $11.3 million from a Government of Spain Debt2Health swap.
  5. The domestic commitment shown for Cameroon TB only reflects the minimum co-financing commitment to be invested in health products.
  6. The UQD and domestic commitments for India TB/HIV were previously shown (under HIV in Batch 4).
  7. The amounts approved for Cameroon HIV include matching funds in the amount of $9,176,325.

 

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 22 funding requests, four were of the program continuation variety; four were full review; and 14 were tailored. Five of the funding requests were from Window 1 (20 March 2017); 11 from Window 2 (23 May); and six from Window 3 (28 August).

 

Table 2: Country grants approved from the 2017-2019 allocations ā€“ā€“ Fifth batch ā€“ā€“ Nā€“T ($US)

Applicant Comp. Grant name Principal recipient Amount approved UQD Domestic commitment
Namibia Malaria NAM-M-MOH Ministry of Health 2,370,582 915,902 35,400,000
TB/HIV NAM-C-MOH Ministry of Health 29,132,416 12,107,987 333,700,000
NAM-C-NANASO NANASO 6,603,874
Pakistan TB PAK-T-MC Mercy Corps 15,000,000 48,440,500 84,600,000
PAK-T-NTP Natl. TB Control Prog. 89,163,205
PAK-T-TIH The Indus Hospital 40,000,000
P.N.G. TB/HIV PNG-C-WV World Vision 21,076,614 10,194,132 47,850,000
Paraguay HIV PRY-H-CIRD CIRD 4,432,967 1,326,021 58,289,530
Rwanda HIV RWA-T-MOH Ministry of Health 154,462,907 23,039,981 70,441,245
TB RWA-T-MOH Ministry of Health 14,154,994 5,594,153
Malaria RWA-M-MOH Ministry of Health 41,460,255 21,841,668 55,929,592
SƩnƩgal RSSH/TB SEN-Z-MOH Ministry of Health 13,016,168 9,728,017 8,503,116
Malaria SEN-M-PNLP Natl. Mal. Control Prog. 39,205,119 N/A 22,389,950
Tajikistan HIV TLK-H-UNDP UNDP 12,939,544 6,069,027 12,975,346
Tanzania TB/HIV TZA-C-Amref Amref Health Africa 24,969,148 N/A N/A
Timor-Leste HIV TLS-H-MOH Ministry of Health 3,024,901 486,389 2,390,032

Notes:

  1. Amounts shown are upper ceilings.
  2. For countries using euros, the amounts were converted to U.S. dollars at a rate of 1.2115 euros to the dollar.
  3. The domestic commitments shown are for the disease programs and exclude RSSH unless otherwise indicated.
  4. At the time of the preparation of the GAC report, SƩnƩgal had not yet submitted its Prioritized Above-Allocation Request.
  5. The amounts for Tanzania UQD and domestic commitments were previously reported (in Batch 3).
  6. The amounts approved include matching funds for Namibia TB/HIV ($1,000,000) and Pakistan TB ($13,999,990).

 

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 ā€“ 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. The Secretariat told Aidspan that it was confident most of the confirmations for these grants will be signed very quickly and that few extensions of existing grants will be required. When the grants go to the Board for approval, they are already disbursement ready.

More to come

There were just over 200 country grants approved in the first five batches. Three more windows have been scheduled for 2018, as follows (with the TRP meeting dates shown in parentheses):

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

Multi-country grant

In this latest batch of approvals, there was one multi-country grant, known as ā€œSouthern Africa WHC.ā€ Submitted by the Southern Africa Regional Coordinating Mechanism, this grant will continue the work of the existing regional grant on TB in the mining sector, with the Wits Health Consortium remaining as PR. The grant has a budget of $22.5 million and covers the following countries: Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Malawi. Aidspan plans to publish a separate article on this grant in the near future.

Grant extensions

The Board approved extensions for an HIV grant in Guatemala and two HIV grants in Nigeria.

The Guatemala HIV grant (GTM-H-HIVOS) was extended for 12 months to 31 December 2018 to allow for essential services to continue while a new funding request is reviewed. The TRP reviewed the original request in August 2017 but sent it back for iteration. The extension budget of $4.9 million will come from Guatemalaā€™s 2017ā€“2019 allocation.

HIVOS will be the PR during the extension. Previously, HIVOS was co-PR with the Ministry of Health (MOH), but the MOH has withdrawn. When the new grant is approved, the co-PR is expected to be the Institute for Nutrition of Central America and Panama (INCAP). According to the GAC, the decision to change PR was mainly motivated by the need to lower program costs, promote sustainability, and facilitate coordination with the government. During the extension, the focus will be on providing services to men who have sex with men, and transgendered persons; providing HIV testing; and providing linkage to care for people living with HIV.

The two Nigeria grants (MGA-H-LSMOH and NGA-H-SFHNG) were extended for 18 months. Aidspan previously reported on four other HIV grants that received similar extensions.

Note: The $8.86 billion figure cited in this article for cumulative funding awarded to date is an unofficial figure based on Aidspanā€™s interpretation of the reports of the Grant Approvals Committee. The $8.86 billion includes matching funds but excludes multi-country grants of the type that used to be called ā€œregional grantsā€ ā€“ā€“ except for the Regional Artemisinin-resistance Initiative (RAI) in Southeast Asia. The RAI is a hybrid grant with a total value of $243.7 million, of which $119.0 million comes from the multi-country funding stream in the catalytic investments funding pool; $1.3Ā million from matching funds; and $123.4 million from country allocations. There is a second type of multi-country grant which covers groupings of small island states; these grants are included in the $8.86 billion figure.

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

Most of the information for this article was taken from Board Document GF-B38-ER05 (Electronic Report to the Board: Report of the Secretariatā€™s Grant Approvals Committee). This document is not available on the Global Fund website.Ā 

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