The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced “a number of measures to reinforce its financial safeguards and increase its capacity to prevent and detect fraud and misuse in its grants. The organization is also setting up a high-profile panel of international experts to review its systems and ensure that its approaches to fraud prevention are among the strongest in the world.” The measures to strengthen financial safeguards announced today include:

– Expanding the mandate of firms that monitor expenditure in countries in order to enhance fraud prevention and detection

– Strengthening the role of country coordinating bodies in grant oversight

– Additional scrutiny of activities considered at higher risk of fraud, such as training

– Redirecting a proportion of all grants to assess and strengthen financial controls at country level

– Increasing the number of the Fund’s staff responsible for financial management

– Doubling the budget of the Fund’s independent Inspector General.

In parallel, the Global Fund said it is establishing an independent, panel of highly-respected international experts “to review its financial control and oversight procedures, evaluate that they are of the highest standard and, if necessary, suggest further improvements.” The panel will deliver its report to the Global Fund Board in May and will be made public.

4 February 2011: http://www.theglobalfund.org/en/pressreleases/?pr=pr_110204