The UNDP-Global Fund Partnership

UNDP and the Global Fund have been engaged in partnership since late 2002. The partnership was formalized in December 2003 through an Exchange of Letters between the UNDP Administrator and the Global Fund Executive Director. The partnership is further delineated in the UNDP–Global Fund Framework Agreement.

UNDP is requested to serve as interim Principal Recipient (PR) in countries where complex emergencies or other challenging operating environments exist, and when the Global Fund and the Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM) have not found a suitable local entity. During programme implementation, UNDP is expected to develop the capacity of one or more local entities to assume the role of PR as soon as possible. Under the Global Fund dual-track funding policy, UNDP can also be a Co-PR (with a separate entity as the other PR) to a disease component of a proposal.

UNDP’s partnership with the Global Fund focuses on three interlinked objectives:

1. Supporting implementation by serving as interim/last resort PR (which is equivalent to an Implementing Partner in UNDP’s programmatic terminology) of the Global Fund in countries facing challenging operating environments;
2. Developing the capacity of national entities to take over the management of Global Fund projects as soon as circumstances permit (exit strategy), or to improve the national entities’ performance while they are already serving as PRs; and
3. Strengthening policy and programme quality of the Global Fund-related work, both at country and global levels, in line with UNDP’s role as a cosponsor of UNAIDS and UNDP’s core mandates in governance and capacity development. This includes (i) promoting the inclusion of human rights and gender equality initiatives into Global Fund grants, and (ii) ensuring that financing reaches key populations such as men who have sex with men, and local networks of people living with HIV. UNDP also helps to align grants with national development plans and poverty reduction strategies, promotes appropriate public sector reform and anti-corruption initiatives, and promotes principles of national ownership, aid effectiveness and sustainability.