Global Fund disbursement expected soon

meetings with the visiting team, Global Fund co-ordinator in Zimbabwe Mr Rangarirai Chiteure said application for release of funds could be signed end of this month after which the funds would be released.
He said the funds could be released sometime in July to Zimbabwe for continuation of projects, which were started under phase one.
The Global Fund approved Zimbabwe’s application for five-year funding for round eight in 2009 and funding for the first two years was immediately released under phase one.
The two-year-long first phase was supposed to have been closed in December last year and unutilised funding would then be forfeited by the Global Fund.
Phase one was, however, not closed in December because the Global Fund called for extension of the phase – a situation which saw Zimbabwe continuing to use funding earmarked for phase one into 2011 to cover up for the delay in disbursement of funds for phase two.
“Phase two of funding is performance-based. In our case, the Global Fund only approved our application for release of funds for malaria and health strengthening systems.
Funding for tuberculosis and HIV and Aids has not been approved as they said they needed to clarify a few issues before they prepare the application for signing,” Mr Chiteure said.
“That is one of the reasons why the team visited Zimbabwe,” he added.
Zimbabwe applied for nearly US$180 million to respond to the three epidemics.
This saw US$84,6 million going towards HIV and Aids, US$28,2 million for TB and malaria programmes receiving US$32,8 million.
The fourth component of Health Strengthening Systems (HSS), which was included in the proposal for the first time, got US$34,2 million.
Mr Chiteure said the team had also come to finalise on consolidation of grants for round eight and 10, which will see the Global Fund financing programmes rather than projects as was the case before.
Meanwhile, the Global Fund said it is disbursing about US$125 million for malaria round 10 grant.
The amount will fund malaria programme activities for the period while consolidation of round eight and 10 is being worked on.
In a different but related issue, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged US$750 million to support the Global Fund.
This follows revelations that some donors had failed to honour committed funds resulting in the Global Fund’s subsequent cancellation of round 11 of funding.
Commenting on this development, Mr Chiteure said there was hope that the Global Fund will get more donors by 2015.
The proposed cuts in Global Fund disbursements in the near future have ignited apprehension in many developing countries as there is fear that the HIV pandemic could get out of hand once more.
Zimbabwe is one of the countries with the highest HIV and TB burdens in the world with most mitigatory programmes reliant on donor funding.