Global Fund Risk Management

In 2014 the Global Fund Board adopted the Risk Management Policy, which is a comprehensive approach to risk management at the corporate level. A high-quality and detailed overview of the Global Fund risk management approach was prepared by Aidspan and is available here.

The Global Fund sees risk as an everyday part of its activities. There is a clear need to balance the risk of not accomplishing the Global Fund’s mission to fight the three diseases, with fiduciary risk. Guidelines for risk differentiation define how much risk the Global Fund is willing to accept in the pursuit of its objectives. Setting risk thresholds ensures that risks are not over-or under-managed, and that scarce resources are effectively utilized.

The Global Fund identifies different categories of risk: internal, external and strategic. The management of internal and strategic risk does not have immediate implications for Principal Recipients (PRs). Regarding external risks, the Global Fund is willing to accept higher levels of risk in grants that are being implemented in environments that are inherently riskier (for example, in Challenging Operating Environments), than for grants in relatively lower-risk settings.

The Global Fund relies on three layers of assurance:

1. In-country assurance provided by the PRs and Local Fund Agents (LFAs).
2. The Secretariat assurance provided by the Chief Risk Officer.
3. The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) which undertakes audits and investigations. The OIG reports are available here and can serve as good indication of key weaknesses observed in Global Fund programmes.