Funding prospects improve for Round 6 Global Fund

At least $270 million will be available to finance Round 6 grants, and possibly as much as $620 million, according to recent estimates by the Global Fund.

The cost of the first two years of Rounds 1 through 5 ranged between $578 and $1,014 million. By definition, the cost of Round 6 will not be known until the Technical Review Panel has reviewed applications and the board has decided which ones to approve. The deadline for submitting Round 6 proposals was August 3; the board decision will be made on November 3.

In Rounds 1 through 5, the Fund was able to finance all grants that the board deemed worthy of approval, though in the case of Rounds 4 and 5, formal approval of some of the grants had to be slightly delayed in order to make this possible.

When Round 6 was launched in early May there was no money at all for Round 6. This was because all commitments to the Fund at that time were required to cover Phase 2 renewals of grants that had been approved in earlier rounds. Thus, the amount of money that will be available for Round 6 will depend entirely upon the extent to which new pledges for 2006 and the first part of 2007 are received from donors to the Fund between May (when Round 6 was launched) and November (when grants are approved).

Estimates presented by the Secretariat at the April board meeting showed a range of assumptions for new pledges that could lead to between $200 million and a little less than $600 million being available for the first two years of Round 6 grants.

At the end of June, the Fund updated its April estimate, saying that it was now certain of having at least $270 m. for Round 6, and hopeful of as much as $620 m. Since then, Russia has announced a major new pledge (see next article), with an unknown portion of that pledge coming in time to cover Round 6. And an even larger multi-year pledge is expected to be announced by another donor during the International AIDS Conference in Toronto next week.

Russia Announces Major Pledge to Global Fund

Russia has announced a pledge of $270 million through 2010, sufficient to reimburse the cost of all Global Fund projects in Russia to date. This will be, by far, the largest pledge to the Global Fund from a country that also receives grants from the Fund.