The Global Fund made public a preliminary report of an independent evaluation of the pilot phase of the Affordable Medicines Facility–malaria, also known as AMFm. The evaluation “assesses the extent to which AMFm has achieved the main objectives laid out for its pilot phase, which ends in December 2012. The independent evaluation was mandated by the Global Fund Board and will inform its decision in November 2012, when the Board is expected to consider the future of AMFm beyond the pilot phase. The final report will be available in late August.

The goal of AMFm is to improve access to artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs), the most ef(AMFmfective anti-malaria treatment, saving lives and delaying the onset of widespread resistance to this class of medicines. The AMFm pilot phase was launched in April 2009 and began operations in July 2010. It set out to increase availability, particularly through private outlets where most people seek their treatments, and drive down the price of ACTs through a factory-gate global subsidy of ACTs combined with country-level measures to support its implementation. The AMFm pilot phase currently operates in seven countries: Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda. The independent evaluation assessed the program in each of the pilot countries. Preliminary Report webpage: http://www.theglobalfund.org/en/amfm/independentevaluation/