Global Fund Launches New Anti-Corruption Measures

On Friday, February 4th, 2011, U.N. Development Programme Administrator Helen Clark announced that The Global Fund will be taking new and improved measures to combat fraud and corruption with Global Fund money. She backs the Global Fund’s new safeguards as a result of intense scrutiny from donors and other sources that detail fraudulent behavior in grants have prompted intense investigations in the recipient countries. The new measures entail plans to create a panel of experts to examine the fund’s ability to prevent and detect fraud in grants. Other corrective measures include increasing funds for the office of the inspector general, John Parsons. The Global Fund intends to hire more internal financial managers, give external firms more responsibility for monitoring grant spending, and foster improved money management behaviors in grant recipient countries.

Training events tend to be one location where investigators find the highest abuse of funds therefore, a key change to anti-corruption measures will be tighter scrutiny and micromanagement during these training events.

The Global Fund was created in 2002 to accelerate the distribution of health grants to developing countries. It is the largest global investor of programs that combat malaria and tuberculosis and provides a fifth of all international funding to combat HIV/AIDS. The UNDP carries out programs with the Global Fund’s grant money in 27 countries, and UNDP Administrator Helen Clark emphasizes that “when funds intended for lifesaving treatment and prevention are stolen, that theft is tantamount to murder.” The UNDP plans to hire an investigator to check out allegations of corruption in UNDP-managed Global Fund grant money and has reached a deal with the Global Fund to better share information in fraud investigations.

There are now at least 100 active cases of possible fraud with Global Fund money and while investigators are looking into allegations of organized thefts of drugs in several African nations, Germany’s development minister called for a thorough investigation and halted further donations to the fund, a pattern The Global Fund must be swift to derail.

According to Associated Press, the new measures are said to be in place by June.