Foreign Policy Blogs

Global Fund Announces $1.6 Billion in Additional Funding

Global Fund Announces .6 Billion in Additional FundingIn a positive turn, the Global Fund announced on Wednesday that it has more funding to give out than it originally anticipated.  To the tune of $1.6 billion.  Where, you might ask, did that come from?  In their “news flash” released yesterday, they write:

There were many factors that piled up on the plus side of the ledger, but most of the reasons grew out of tough choices that the Board made last year. A back-to-basics approach, focusing on the core business of managing grants, with common sense management, has created a situation where good things happen. Many of our friends noticed. Some got more generous. Others found they could speed up existing plans to make a donation. Still others jumped in for the first time.

Reuters reports that a portion of the new funding available comes from countries like China covering needs in their own country, releasing funds to be used elsewhere.

And, as reported by the WSJ, among donors delivering contributions earlier is the US, which has weathered the Global Fund storm with continued support.  The US is advancing $226 million to the Fund and continues to be the Fund’s largest contributor.

Now the question is, how will the new funds be used?  The Fund has stated that it will consult countries and partners to determine the allocation of the funding, so the decision will likely take some time.  Since the shake-up earlier this year, the Fund has halted new funding until 2014, so the option to bring that date forward is now on the table.

Perhaps we’ll know more today – Jaramillo was set to report to the Global Fund’s board yesterday.

 

Author

Cynthia Schweer Rayner

Cynthia Schweer Rayner is an independent consultant and philanthropy advisor specializing in public health, social entrepreneurship and scalable business models for positive social change. As a recovering management consultant, she spent several months living in South Africa, and later co-founded the US branch of an organization providing support to orphaned and vulnerable children. In 2009, she was an LGT Venture Philanthropy Fellow, working with mothers2mothers (m2m), a multinational non-profit organization employing mothers living with HIV as peer educators to positive pregnant women. She currently works with individuals, companies and nonprofits to finance and develop models for positive change. Cynthia has an MBA from INSEAD and a BA in English Literature from Georgetown University. She currently lives in Cape Town and visits New York frequently, where she co-owns a Manhattan-based yoga studio, mang'Oh yoga (www.mangohstudio.com).