Data for Decisionmaking and the Global Fund

October 21, 2015

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria’s current five-year strategy “Investing for Impact” has guided a massive shift in its operational approach, leaving behind the more passive competitive rounds in favor of an allocation-based system that includes substantial back and forth with countries to increase impact. This change has been widely welcomed, but its success has been challenged by lack of data to guide smart investment decisions. As the Global Fund develops its next strategy, there is considerable energy behind a greater emphasis on strengthening the capacity of countries to obtain data, interpret them, and use them to monitor programs and guide strategies.

On July 28, CSIS hosted a discussion among a small group of data experts to develop specific recommendations to the U.S. representatives on the Global Fund board of directors as they participate in the development of the next multiyear strategy. The discussion focused on opportunities to strengthen country capacities to obtain and use data more effectively to drive smart programming of health resources. This will include how those data should be used to track results, and how methodologies for that measurement can be aligned between countries, the U.S. government’s bilateral efforts, as well as those of the Global Fund, and other major donors.