Geneva – The Global Fund today announced that the independently constituted Technical Review Panel has recommended 85 requests for funding worth a total of US$ 949 million over two years to the Board of the Global Fund for its consideration. The recommended proposals represent 43 percent of all eligible requests for funding received by the Global Fund for its sixth round of funding.

The Board is expected to approve the recommended proposals at its upcoming meeting in Guatemala City, from 31 October – 3 November. However, some grants may have to wait for further donor pledges to the Global Fund before they can receive a green light from the Board.

In May of this year, the Global Fund issued its sixth call for proposals for grant funding, with an application deadline of early August. Applicants, including ninety-five countries through Country Coordinating Mechanisms, submitted proposals to seek funding to fight the three pandemics and requested amounts totaled approximately US$2.7 billion over two years. All proposals were screened for eligibility by the Secretariat, and considered by the independent Technical Review Panel, made up of experts in each of the three diseases as well as development issues. The panel assessed proposals for technical merit, soundness of work plans and targets, sustainability of the planned interventions and consistency with proven best practices. Only high quality proposals have been recommended to the Board of the Global Fund for approval.

The Board will only be able to approve grants for which it has sufficient financial pledges. Unless substantial new pledges are received in the coming five weeks, it will be prevented from approving all of the recommended Round 6 proposals for initial 2 year grants immediately. The current shortfall of resources is approximately US$300 million. Similar shortages have occurred in previous rounds, with the Board initially approving a portion of the recommended grants, with the full funding of the round following within some months when adequate donor resources had been pledged.

“This robust demand for new resources show that countries both need and can absorb substantial additional resources to fight the three pandemic,” said Professor Richard Feachem, Executive Director of the Global Fund. “Through Round 6, the donors are being presented with high-quality programs which will save thousands of lives and build a global response to these three pandemics. Donor countries must respond to this challenge by pledging sufficient additional resources so all recommended programs can be funded.”

Since its creation in 2002, the Global Fund has become the world's primary financing mechanism for programs against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, financing 20 percent of international programs against AIDS worldwide, as well as two thirds of all international tuberculosis and malaria programs. Taken together, the three diseases kill more than six million people each year.