Policy Brief

Global Fund one page fact sheet

The Global Fund is one of our most powerful tools in the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria.

  • The Global Fund is the world's largest global health financier, providing two-thirds of all international financing to fight malaria and tuberculosis, as well as one-quarter of all financing to fight HIV/AIDS, since 2002. The Global Fund has approved more than $22 billion in 150 countries to combat these three diseases.
  • At the core of their work, the Global Fund empowers affected communities to take charge of their own health and development. The Global Fund also uses rigorous performance-based funding, which means that they continue to fund programs that are strong and successful, and pull or modify funding for programs that are not demonstrating maximum impact for money.

Investments in the Global Fund work; the Global Fund is saving millions of lives.

  • In less than a decade, the Global Fund's programs have saved 6.5 million lives. They have done this by providing the funding for the purchase and distribution of:
    • life-saving antiretroviral treatment for AIDS for 3.6 million people
    • tuberculosis treatments for 9.3 million people
    • more than 270 million bednets to prevent malaria infections
    • treatment to reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV to more than 1.5 million HIV-positive pregnant women
  • With scaled-up investments, the Global Fund is poised to lead the charge to achieve no more malaria deaths and no more babies born with HIV.

The Global Fund is a smart investment, especially in tough economic times.

  • The Global Fund is truly global, in the sense that the US does not need to fund the fight against these diseases alone. For every $1 the US provides to the Global Fund, $3 is distributed on the ground, because $2 are leveraged from other donors.
  • The Global Fund requires many countries to co-finance some of their programs, which creates a sustainable development model and ensures that recipient countries feel involved in the success of their programs. The Global Fund also charges no administrative overhead, ensuring all funding raised makes a direct impact in the field.

The Global Fund needs global leadership.

  • In October 2010, at its Third Voluntary Replenishment, the Global Fund secured US $11.7 billion in pledges for the period 2011-2013. Even though donor countries committed significant amounts, especially considering the budgetary constraints, total pledges fell short of the estimated resources needed (US $17-20 billion) to meet demand from developing countries seeking to further scale up their diseases' programs.
  • This replenishment outcome means that the Global Fund can continue to save lives over the next three years, but that the global community may not have the financing needed to achieve the goals of no malaria deaths and no child born with HIV by 2015. In the coming years, the Global Fund will need additional funds from the public and private sectors and from northern and southern donors in order to scale up its work and to win the fight against these diseases.