Global Fund Observer Editorial

Author:

Aidspan Editorial Team

Article Number: 1

ABSTRACT Our editorial team’s summary of what you can expect from this issue of the Global Fund Observer.

Dear readers,

Summer has just begun, and we know that a number of you will be leaving the office for some well-deserved time off. But news doesn’t wait, and the Global Fund’s news is hot, as it is every year at the close of the first half of the year and with the committees meeting in July.

It is therefore only natural that this issue should focus on the committee agenda in order to decipher for you the issues and topics that will be discussed there.

Aidspan also reports on the meetings organized by the African Constituency Office in June to discuss a subject that concerns the continent first and foremost: Challenging Operating Environments. 13 countries in West and Central Africa are concerned by this classification, and they met to talk about their difficulties, exchange on the flexibility measures they have obtained and on the performance of their grants.

We wanted to keep you updated on the latest news regarding the qualitative adjustments that will determine the next allocations, a subject that is as technical as it is hot! In addition, the OIG’s audit of the COVID C19RM response mechanism has just been published and we have provided you with an analysis that may make you want to read the full report. As we have done every month since the launch of the replenishment campaign, we bring you news on this key process to make the $18 billion needed available to recipient countries and the Secretariat.

We opened our columns to special guests who sent us opinion piece and commentary on the difficulty for key populations and communities to attend the Aids Conference organised in Canada due to bureaucratic delay. Another contribution analyses the World Bank’s initiative to create a Financial Intermediary Fund (FIF) for Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, and Response, that seems to duplicate the GF’s effort in the pandemic preparedness.

Finally, news from the field takes us once again to Eastern Europe, where regional grants are adapting to the most pressing needs of the Ukrainian population but are having a deplorable impact on key Russian population NGOs that have stopped being funded.

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