Unveiled: WHO and Global Fund Join Forces for a Game-Changing Collaboration!

Today, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (the Global Fund) signed a new and revised Strategic Framework for Collaboration, designed to build stronger health systems. strong and resilient and maximize collaboration and impact in support of national, regional and global responses to major communicable diseases.

The new five-year framework builds on the previous agreement signed in 2018. It aligns with the Global Fund Strategy 2023-2028 and the WHO General Program of Work, which places communities at the center of the health response and also addresses pandemic preparedness and challenges. posed by climate change. The framework fits with broader collaboration platforms to accelerate support to countries to achieve the health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including Universal Health Coverage (UHC).

“As health budgets around the world are strained and under pressure, it is imperative that our two organizations continue to work together to help countries expand access to services for the three diseases as part of their journey to coverage. universal health care,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom. Ghebreyesus, WHO Director General. “In light of the slow progress towards ending the AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria epidemics, along with emerging health challenges, closer collaboration between WHO and the Global Fund is needed more than ever.”

With the shared mission and commitment of WHO and the Global Fund to serve countries, the new Strategic Framework for Collaboration will further strengthen and expand collaboration.

“At a time when the world is beset by intertwining and intersecting crises, from conflict to climate change, the partnership between the Global Fund and WHO is more critical than ever,” said Peter Sands, Executive Director of the Global Fund. “Crises shake global systems and push back profits, with the world’s most vulnerable people bearing the brunt. Organizations like ours are most effective when we work closely with national governments and other trusted partners to strengthen local community-driven health systems.”

Ongoing collaboration over the past few years has contributed to significant achievements at the national level:

• Rapid scaling of differentiated service delivery (DSD) in a range of countries to improve access to HIV prevention, testing, care and treatment, including 18 countries currently receiving intensified support through the Strategic Initiative Global Fund and WHO collaborative DSD to increase efficiency and cost-effectiveness in DSD.
• The collaboration has enabled early targeting and surveys on dual testing for COVID-19 and TB, enabling better detection of people with TB through innovations adopted during and after the COVID-19 emergency.
• Strategic initiatives on malaria enabled accelerated progress toward malaria elimination. Since 2018, eight countries have been certified malaria-free by the WHO, with five more preparing for certification in 2023 and 2024.
• The partnership also provides the foundation for accelerating implementation of innovative approaches, such as the new WHO Guidelines on Insecticide-Treated Nets for Malaria and scaling up new, shorter treatments for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.
• Valuable support was provided in the development of 50 costed and evidence-based national strategic plans aligned with the latest WHO guidelines, which served as the basis for high-quality funding requests to the Global Fund.
• Global health financing remains an important area for continued collaboration to help countries develop stronger, more sustainable, and more efficient health financing systems. WHO’s work to track health spending in 59 low- and middle-income countries has informed the national health policy dialogue. Working together to support cross-program efficiency analysis in 13 countries has reduced fragmentation and duplication.

Even with this level of progress, much work remains to be done in countries to accelerate progress toward ending the AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria epidemics and build strong health systems that are also capable of responding to the next emergency.

Through this new framework, WHO and the Global Fund will leverage their comparative strengths in 35 areas of collaboration divided into 4 categories:

1. Health policies and regulatory guidance
2. Advocacy and health governance
3. Products and innovations for health
4. Technical support and capacity building

Note to editors

This page was updated on June 9, 2023. Corrected text on Differentiated Service Delivery (DSD) for HIV to clarify that 18 countries currently receive intensified support through the Global Fund-WHO collaboration, while several other countries are implementing DSD.