The webinar was organised by Global Fund Advocates Network Asia-Pacific (GFAN AP) on 23rd October 2024 to bring together community and civil society partners from the Asia-Pacific to present on the key findings of the Global Fund Results Report 2024 (Results Report) and its impact on Asia-Pacific leading up to the Global Fund Eighth Replenishment. The call was attended by approximately 30 participants, including colleagues from Asia-Pacific as well as from Africa.
The session opened with welcome remarks by Rachel Ong (Regional Coordinator, GFAN AP) and introduction of the main presenter, Ernest Waititu (Communications Manager, Global Fund).
Presentation of Results Report findings
Ernest began his presentation by noting that the Results Report represents not just the achievements of the Global Fund, but the whole partnership which makes the work possible. Ernest shared that the Results Report has been packaged in a way that makes it more convenient for individuals to access the different chapters according to their interest.
Other key results include: 25 million people on antiretroviral (ARV) therapy for HIV in 2023; 7.1 million people treated for TB in 2023; and 227 million mosquito nets distributed to fight malaria in 2023.
Ernest shared the main key results for 2023 which shows that the Global Fund has seen year-on-year increases in the lives saved, as well as the achievements across the three diseases. In 2023, the Global Fund partnership fully recovered from the impact on service disruptions caused by COVID-19 and got back on track in terms of the trajectory before the pandemic.

Global Fund investments in HIV up to the end of 2023 have freed up 1.66 billion HIV-related hospitalisation days and averted 1.36 billion outpatient visits, which generated US$85 billion in cost savings.
The Global Fund’s marketing shaping efforts have made a big difference in reducing prices for key commodities across HIV, TB and malaria, including reducing prices by 25% for preferred first-line HIV treatment; 20% for diagnostic test cartridges for TB; 30% for short course TB preventive treatment; and 55% for bedaquiline, the main treatment for drug-resistant TB.
In a year beset by crises including climate change, conflict, anti-gender and anti-rights movements, and attacks on civil society, the Global Fund partnership acted with agility to support countries to confront challenges and continue accelerating progress on the three diseases while protecting the gains made.

Several Global Fund-supported countries have achieved their 95-95-95 testing, treatment and viral load suppression targets, such as Botswana, Eswatini, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The number of children orphaned by AIDS had also decreased by 26% between 2010 and 2023 in countries where the Global Fund invests. The biggest gains are in sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and in the Asia-Pacific region, 124 million hospitalisation days were avoided through Global Fund investments in HIV.
The Global Fund has invested in innovative tools and approaches to find and treat the millions of “missing” people with TB, including mobile diagnostic units, AI-powered computer-aided detection software, and digital chest X-rays.
Another new area that is reported is post-TB lung disease (PTLD), which are negative after-effects of TB that affect approximately 40% of individuals treated and cured of TB. The Global Fund supported the integration of PTLD in national TB programmes in Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda.


On health and community systems, the Global Fund has accelerated its investments, especially through the COVID-19 Response Mechanism (C19RM), which has seen very remarkable growth in human resources for health, laboratory systems, health products and waste management, surveillance systems strengthening, and medical oxygen.
The Global Fund procures US$2.5 billion worth of health products each year. In 2023, US$1.34 billion in orders went to the Pooled Procurement Mechanism (PPM) to support 81 countries. A key success in 2023 for the Global Fund partnership was the negotiated breakthrough on ARV pricing at under US$45 per person per year, compared to an annual cost of over US$10,000 per person annually in 2002.
The Global Fund had invested over US$200 million in 2023 towards the Breaking Down Barriers initiative which supports programmes to remove gender and human rights barriers to treatment access in 24 countries, a tenfold increase in investments since 2017. Additionally, the Global Fund has disbursed US$22 billion to countries affected by humanitarian crises since 2002. Through the Emergency Fund, the Global Fund has approved over US$130 million from 2014 to 2023, to address emergencies mainly triggered by climate disasters, conflict, and displacement in challenging operating environments (COEs).
Responding to climate change, the Global Fund invests in climate adaptation initiatives, to support disaster risk management for health; vulnerability, risk and impact assessment; disease surveillance and early warning systems; and climate sensitive disease control in vulnerable areas. The Global Fund also invests in climate change mitigation through solar projects, which has supported the solarisation of more than a thousand health centres and storage facilities in 15 African countries over the last seven years.
Since 2002, the Global Fund has invested more than US$65.4 billion to respond to HIV, TB and malaria and to strengthen systems for health across more than 100 countries. In 2023, the Global Fund disbursed US$5 billion, a third year in a row of record investments.
For the period of 2021-2024, the largest share of funds was distributed in Sub-Saharan Africa (72%), followed by Asia and the Pacific (19%). In the last two grant cycles, 12% of funds invested went to local community-based organisations, contrasted with 58% to governments and 31% to multilateral and international non-governmental organisations. Meanwhile, in 2023, Global Fund grants accounted for 28% of all international financing of HIV, 76% of TB, and 62% of malaria programmes, respectively.
Ernest concluded his presentation with a summary of the results report’s suite of assets, which include translations, a web page, social media toolkit, news release, video, and more. The floor was opened for questions and discussion.
Questions and discussion
Sonal Mehta noted that the results presented seemed to lack a focus on communities and asked if its omission was a conscious political decision. Blessina Kumar (Chairperson, GFAN AP Steering Committee & CEO, Global Coalition of TB Activists) highlighted that in the Asia-Pacific region, communities and civil society actors are the ones addressing human rights challenges and removing barriers, yet direct investments to communities are greatly lacking here. She also noted that TB is still seen as a medicalised problem and requires a community-led approach like the HIV response: funding needs to go directly to communities working on the ground, not global entities. There was also a question from Shibu Giri (National Coordinator, National Association of PLWHA in Nepal) that asked why only 28% of international HIV funding comes from the Global Fund.
Ernest shared that 28% is a positive statistic for HIV funding, as HIV is also the Global Fund’s biggest investment at US$26 billion. The 28% statistic shows that there are many other funders also investing in the fight against HIV. Regarding the lack of focus on communities, Ernest shared that the full report is much richer than the abridged slides he had presented, such as the chapter on “Health and Community Systems” that discusses the role of community networks and infrastructure to support access to treatment prevention services and care. The results report also provides civil society partners with advocacy material and data points, to enable communities to engage and advocate for more investments in community systems.
A second round of questions were raised. Shreehari Acharya (Project Manager, Malaria CSO Platform) enquired about other key indicators of success for malaria besides the number of nets distributed. Sonal commented that there has been a systematic reduction in HIV funding, not only in percentage terms but also in actual total funds. Suresh Dhungana (Program Manager, National Association of PLWHA in Nepal) also commented that despite the additional resources for Breaking Down Barriers, the increase has not been felt in Nepal. Shibu asked if the Global Fund would consider creating a direct funding mechanism to community organisations, similar to what PEPFAR (the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) has started in Nepal. Replying to Shibu, Rachel shared that GFAN AP is also working on a similar request in the campaign being developed for the Asia-Pacific region and would be happy to be in touch to discuss further.
Daniel Marguari (GFAN AP steering committee member & CEO of Spiritia Foundation) shared that he agrees with Blessina’s point to strengthen the focus on community programmes and community-managed funding. He shared concerns about potentially reduced funds from the ninth grant cycle onwards given the push towards sustainability, transition & co-financing (STC), therefore it is important to prioritise funding in the eighth grant cycle for civil society and community-managed HIV and TB programmes and provide allocations for community systems strengthening to ensure sustainability. Daniel also suggested if Ernest is able to advocate internally from within the Global Fund secretariat to the board on these priority areas.
Ernest shared that the results report is intended to give advocates and other people material needed to advocate at multiple levels, including at the board level via country representatives, and at the country level via country coordinating mechanisms (CCMs). Country-level data has been made available online to support country-level advocacy, and advocacy requests to the secretariat may be directed to the community, rights & gender (CRG) team.
Regarding malaria indicators, Ernest shared that there are other indicators available in the full report, such as 15.5 million pregnant women received preventive treatment for malaria in 2023, 7.9 million structures were covered by IRS (internal residual spraying) in 2023, 171 million malaria cases tested in 2023, 44.6 million children received seasonal malaria chemoprevention in 2023, and 335 million suspected malaria cases were tested in 2023.
Rachel shared that GFAN AP will require further disaggregated data for the Asia-Pacific region, as it would be extremely helpful for GFAN AP’s regional advocacy work with donors. Daniel commented that it is very important for communities to engage with country teams, including CCMs and portfolio managers, to advocate for the priority areas discussed today to influence proposal development.
The webinar concluded with appreciation to participants for their engagement and contributions during and beyond the call especially for the results achieved in 2023. GFAN AP would also be sharing more information with partners in the next few months on the Asia-Pacific campaign, to be rolled out very soon, in support of the Global Fund Eighth Replenishment.
SPEAKER:

Ernest Waititu
Communications Manager, Global Fund
PRESENTATIONS:
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- The Global Fund Results Report 2024. Presenter: Ernest Waititu, Global Fund.