Election of the Vice Chair
of the Board for the Global Fund

What happened during the Seventh Meeting Board Meeting?

Dr. Hélène Rossert-Blavier, Director General of the AIDES Federation of France and Board Member of the Developed Country NGO was unanimously elected as the Vice Chair of the Board of the Global Fund, during the Seventh Meeting of the GFATM Board, that took place in Geneva, Switzerland on March 18-19 th .

Several members of the committees and respective sub-committees were elected during the meeting, and a report on the advances of the World Health Organization (WHO) 3x5 initiative was presented.

The communities' right to vote as well all everything related to the appeals of proposals presented during the Third Round, were discussed during the meeting.

New Board Members were given a general overview of the Global Fund and its operations during an orientation session with key officers, including the Executive Director of the Global Fund, on 16 March at the Global Fund Headquarters. Members also seized the opportunity to seek clarification on various issues. / Back to top

Dr. Ernest Massiah, Social Development Specialist of the Inter-American Development Bank and a national of Trinidad and Tobago was elected, from a shortlist, to serve on the Technical Evaluation Reference Group (TERG), a sub-committee of the Monitoring, Evaluation, Finance and Audit (MEFA) Committee .

Dr. Ernest Massiah, Trinidad and Tobago and Ms. Nemora Barcellos, Ms. Maria E. Fernandes and Mr. Fabio Mesquita, of Brazil, have been elected to the TRP Support Group .

The meeting was updated on the progress of the WHO 3x5 Initiative, a framework for collective action, since its launch on the last World AIDS Day. This new health campaign is objectively to assist countries in providing HIV antiretroviral treatment to 3 million people by the end of 2005. There is need for a chain of three links: Financial institutions (Global Fund/World Bank/Donors); Technical Organisations (WHO, Multilaterals, National agencies, organisations assisting with monitoring and evaluation); and Implementing Partners (Ministries/agencies, NGOs, companies, communities). The Board supported the Initiative launched by WHO and UNAIDS and cited that its goals should be mainly implemented at the country and regional level.

During discussion on the prioritization of TRP-recommended proposals, it was agreed that a Composite Index would be used to assign scores and for Round 4, the criteria used in this index would be poverty and disease burden. The PMPC committee was requested to review the possibility of including an additional criterion for the Fifth and subsequent Rounds relative to repeated failures and countries that have not previously received funding.

Also, A meeting of the Committee has been scheduled for July 7-8, 2004, immediately preceding the International Conference on HIV/AIDS, in Bangkok and would bring together approximately 600 persons from different geographic regions and constituencies. (PDF format document, 6 pages, 69 Kb). / Back to top

Geneva. - Three international organizations signed agreements with the Clinton Foundation that will allow developing countries to get high quality medication and materials to test AIDS at the lowest possible prices, in many cases lower than 50% of the current numbers. This information was released last April 6 by Global Fund spokesperson; the World Bank and UNICEF negotiated with the Foundation.

Thanks to these agreements, countries that receive support from the Global Fund, the World Bank and UNICEF will have access to medication and test materials, at the prices negotiated by the Foundation. / Back to top