July 8, 2020
Brief: Independent Assessments Give the Global Fund High Marks
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund) has received high marks from four independent assessments. Two were conducted by non-governmental watchdogs with high standards, Publish What You Fund and the Multilateral Organization Performance Assessment Network, and two governments sharing U.S. priorities on performance and accountability, the United Kingdom and Australia. Publish What You Fund’s assessment is the most recent.
Areas of consensus in these assessments include the Global Fund’s strong results, cost effectiveness, organizational strength and transparency.
Each of the reviews has slightly different premises and approaches.
Publish What You Fund
Publish What You Fund is a high-profile global campaign for aid transparency launched in 2008. Its objective is to raise the visibility and quality of data on aid and development, and to encourage the use of data in decision-making. Unlike the others, it is more singularly focused on openness of information, and first published its annual Aid Transparency Index in 2011.
In its most recent index released in June 2020, Publish What You Fund placed the Global Fund in its top category (very good) of 47 multilateral and bilateral financing organizations it assessed–among the 8 best performers. It called the Global Fund’s quality of data “exemplary” and gave the Global Fund a nearly perfect score in the finance and budgets category.
Multilateral Organization Performance Assessment Network
Multilateral Organization Performance Assessment Network is a network of 18 donor countries, including the United States, with a common interest in assessing the effectiveness of organizations. It applies the same methodology to all institutions to analyze organizational and development effectiveness, including a review of documents, surveys of clients and partners, and consultations with organizations’ headquarters and regional offices.
In its most recent assessment of the Global Fund in 2017, the Multilateral Organization Performance Assessment Network said that the Global Fund “provides strong global leadership for the response to HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria” and that it “fully meets the requirements of an effective multilateral organization.”
Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs
Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs issued a similar assessment of aid recipients in its most recent report, released in May 2017. Its Multilateral Performance Assessment found the Global Fund has greatly improved its strategic leadership and governance, and made financing more predictable through a needs-based allocation methodology.
It found that the Global Fund’s counterpart financing requirements have helped increase domestic investments (by withholding 15 percent of funds unless the local government itself stepped up and invested). It called the Global Fund “a world leader in mobilizing private sector finance and expertise.”
The United Kingdom’s Department for International Development
The United Kingdom’s Department for International Development performs multilateral development reviews to assess which organizations to fund – with a focus on results, value for money, transparency and accountability. The reviews are meant to help align funding with U.K. Development Goals regarding what an organization does, how it delivers and where it works. The most recent review of the Global Fund directly influenced the U.K. government’s decision to increase funding from £800 million in the Global Fund’s 2014-2016 replenishment cycle to £1.1 billion for 2017-2019 and to £1.4 billion for the 2020-2022 replenishment.
The overall picture from these four assessments is that the Global Fund is a very strong public-private partnership – impactful, innovating and improving.