The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria

OVERVIEW: The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is one of the world’s largest multilateral funders of global health programs. It invests primarily in country-led efforts to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, while strengthening the health and community systems that support those responses. Funding generally flows to national governments, multilateral agencies and large nonprofit implementers, which may engage local organizations as subrecipients.

IP TAKE: The Global Fund doesn’t operate a conventional unsolicited proposal process for individual nonprofits. Its principal grants are based on allocations to eligible countries and regions, with funding requests typically developed through national or regional Country Coordinating Mechanisms.

For most nonprofits, the most realistic path to funding is to participate in the relevant country dialogue, build relationships with the Country Coordinating Mechanism and current Principal Recipients, and seek a role as a subrecipient or community implementation partner. Community-led groups may also request technical assistance through the fund’s Community Engagement Strategic Initiative.

This is a highly competitive and procedurally complex funder, but organizations with strong national relationships, disease-specific expertise, community legitimacy and the capacity to operate at scale may find significant opportunities.

PROFILE: The idea for the Global Fund emerged from international advocacy and negotiations involving governments, civil society, communities affected by HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, the African Union, the G8 and the United Nations. The organization came into being in January 2002 as a partnership among governments, civil society, technical agencies, the private sector and people affected by the three diseases. It is not a United Nations agency.

The Global Fund raises money through periodic replenishments, primarily from donor governments, with additional support from foundations, corporations and innovative financing mechanisms. It does not operate from a conventional foundation endowment. Its Eighth Replenishment raised $12.64 billion, and the board subsequently approved approximately $10.78 billion for country allocations during the 2026–2028 allocation period and $260 million for catalytic investments.

The Global Fund makes grants through a country-owned funding model. Eligible countries receive allocation letters describing the amounts available for specific disease components, applicable requirements and any potential access to catalytic funding. Funding requests are generally developed and submitted by a Country Coordinating Mechanism, or CCM, following an inclusive country dialogue. CCMs also nominate the Principal Recipients that will manage approved grants. Principal Recipients may then engage nonprofit organizations, community groups and other partners as subrecipients or sub-subrecipients.

Grants for Global Health

The Global Fund’s principal grantmaking supports programs addressing HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Grants support prevention, testing, diagnosis, treatment, community outreach, medicine and health-product procurement, disease surveillance, laboratory systems, health workers and other activities needed to operate national disease programs.

As of June 2025, the Global Fund reported cumulative investments of $27.6 billion in HIV programs, $10.5 billion in tuberculosis programs and an additional $8.6 billion in combined HIV and TB programs. Its grants have supported national ministries of health, other government agencies, United Nations organizations, international NGOs, local civil society groups and community-based organizations.
Recent and active funding examples illustrate the breadth and scale of this work:
The Global Fund approved $165.5 million for Ukraine’s 2024–2026 HIV, tuberculosis and health systems response. Principal Recipients include the country’s Public Health Center and Ministry of Health, as well as the Ukrainian civil society organizations 100% Life and Alliance for Public Health. More than 100 community-led and community-based organizations participate in delivering services.
In Somalia, active grant records include approximately $75 million for an HIV grant and $161 million for a malaria grant managed by UNICEF, while World Vision International manages the country’s active tuberculosis grant.
In Bangladesh, the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, manages an active HIV grant with a signed value of approximately $29.7 million.
In Botswana, the Ministry of Health manages an active combined tuberculosis and HIV grant with a signed value of approximately $72.6 million.
These figures describe direct Principal Recipient grants. Smaller nonprofit awards may be made through subrecipient arrangements that are not as comprehensively displayed in the Global Fund’s top-level public grant database.

Grants for Community-Led Responses

The Global Fund supports community-led organizations as participants in grant design, implementation and oversight. Funding may support peer outreach, community health services, community-led monitoring, advocacy, legal literacy and programs intended to reach people who face barriers to conventional health systems.

The Community Engagement Strategic Initiative provides one of the fund’s clearest publicly accessible entry points for smaller organizations.

Community and civil society groups affected by HIV, tuberculosis or malaria may request short-term technical assistance at any point in the funding cycle. Assistance may cover needs assessments, participation in country dialogue, program design and implementation arrangements.
Support is delivered by a network of prequalified nongovernmental providers.
The initiative also supports longer-term capacity building, regional learning hubs and community networks. Related intermediary efforts include the Gender Equality Fund, HER Voice Fund and Voix Essentielles. These pathways generally support participation, capacity and community leadership rather than providing unrestricted operating grants.

Grants for Health and Community Systems

The Global Fund’s Resilient and Sustainable Health and Community Systems investments strengthen the infrastructure needed to deliver HIV, tuberculosis and malaria programs while improving countries’ ability to detect and respond to broader health threats. The Global Fund estimates that approximately one-third of its annual grant funding directly supports health-system components and that investments in these systems total approximately $6 billion for the 2024–2026 period.

Funding may support:

Health workers and community health workers.
Community-led and community-based health systems.
Laboratories and diagnostic networks.
Disease surveillance and early-warning systems.
Health information and digital data systems.
Medical oxygen and respiratory care.
Procurement and supply chains.
Health-product and medical-waste management.

The Global Fund is investing more than $900 million in community health workers during the 2024–2026 period. Funding supports training, supervision, equipment, transportation, digital tools, health products and efforts to integrate community health workers into national health systems.

These are generally not separate open grant programs. Health and community systems investments are usually incorporated into an eligible country’s broader Global Fund request.

Catalytic Investments and Multicountry Grants

In addition to country allocations, the Global Fund makes catalytic investments in areas that cannot be addressed adequately through individual country grants. These include:

Catalytic Multicountry Funds: Support regional or cross-border responses to priorities that require coordination among several countries.
Matching Funds: Provide additional funding to selected countries that direct part of their country allocation toward designated strategic priorities and meet relevant program requirements.
Strategic Initiatives: Support innovative, cross-cutting or time-sensitive work that strengthens country grants. Strategic initiatives for Grant Cycle 8 are being designed during 2026, with implementation expected to begin in 2027.

Access to these mechanisms is limited. Matching funds are offered to selected country applicants, multicountry grants address board-approved priorities, and strategic initiatives are generally implemented through designated partners rather than through a broad unsolicited application process.

Grants for Emergency Response and Disaster Relief

The Global Fund’s emergency funding provides rapid and flexible financing to protect HIV, tuberculosis and malaria services during conflicts, natural disasters, disease outbreaks and other acute crises. Established in 2014, the fund had committed more than $149 million through December 2024.

Recent grants include:

$4.6 million for intensified malaria prevention in the Democratic Republic of the Congo during an Ebola response.
$1.77 million to protect HIV and tuberculosis services in Venezuela following earthquakes.
$1.48 million to maintain tuberculosis and HIV services in crisis-affected Lebanon and Iraq.
Approximately $1.6 million for tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment for displaced people and host communities in Sudan.

Emergency funding does not appear to operate through a public rapid-response application. Grants generally build on existing country programs and are implemented through current Principal Recipients, national authorities, United Nations agencies or other organizations with the ability to respond quickly.

Grants for Climate Change

The Global Fund incorporates climate adaptation into its HIV, tuberculosis, malaria and health systems investments. Funding may support climate-resilient health facilities, stronger disease surveillance, reliable supply chains, community health workers and programs that preserve health services during floods, cyclones, droughts, displacement and other climate-related disruptions.

The fund also launched the $50 million Climate x Health Catalytic Fund with the Gates Foundation and Foundation S, Sanofi’s philanthropic organization. The initiative seeks to strengthen health systems in climate-vulnerable countries and support climate-resilient, lower-carbon health services. Public materials do not describe a general nonprofit application process for this fund.

Climate applicants will be strongest when their work is directly connected to HIV, tuberculosis or malaria outcomes, continuity of health services or the resilience of national and community health systems.

Grants for Women and Girls, LGBTQ Communities and Other Key Populations

Gender equality and the needs of key and vulnerable populations are integrated across the Global Fund’s country grants rather than organized as separate, generally open grant programs.

HIV-related programs may support services for gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, transgender people, sex workers, people who use drugs and people in prisons. Depending on national disease patterns, grants may also address the needs of adolescent girls and young women, migrants, refugees, displaced people, miners, children and other populations that experience elevated disease risks or barriers to healthcare.
Funding may support community outreach, prevention, peer-led services, harm reduction, treatment access, community monitoring, responses to gender-based violence and efforts to reduce stigma and discrimination. Organizations led by affected populations may participate in CCMs, receive funding through Principal Recipients or enter through intermediary community-engagement initiatives.

Grants for Human Rights

The Global Fund supports programs that address human rights-related barriers to HIV, tuberculosis and malaria services. Its human rights investments may support efforts to reduce stigma and discrimination, improve legal literacy and access to justice, train healthcare and law-enforcement personnel, reform harmful policies and strengthen community-led monitoring. Civil society and community-led organizations are expected to participate in grant development and implementation.

The fund’s Breaking Down Barriers initiative has provided intensive financial and technical support in 24 countries. Since 2017, the initiative has invested more than $200 million in programs addressing laws, policies, discrimination and other barriers that prevent vulnerable populations from accessing health services.

Breaking Down Barriers is implemented in selected countries and is not a generally open human rights grant program. Human rights organizations are most likely to participate when their work directly addresses access to HIV, tuberculosis or malaria services and is connected to a country grant, CCM, Principal Recipient or established community network.

Grants for Research, Data and Health Innovation

The Global Fund is not primarily a biomedical research grantmaker. It invests in program monitoring, evaluation, implementation evidence, disease surveillance, digital health, diagnostics and the adoption of health technologies that can strengthen HIV, tuberculosis and malaria programs.

Research organizations may participate as Principal Recipients, subrecipients, evaluation partners or technical providers when their work responds to a defined country need. However, the fund does not appear to maintain a broad, investigator-initiated research grant program comparable to those of a public research agency or medical foundation.

The fund also publishes extensive grant, financial and results information through its Data Explorer and Results Report.

Other Policies and Requirements

Several topics described by the Global Fund are important to applicants and grantees but should not be understood as separate funding programs.

Sustainability, Transition and Co-Financing governs how countries increase domestic health financing, integrate programs into national systems and prepare to transition away from Global Fund support.
Protection from Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Harassment establishes safeguarding, reporting and risk-mitigation requirements for Global Fund-supported programs.
Global Health Security describes the wider benefits of investments in laboratories, surveillance, health workers, data systems and supply chains.

The fund’s COVID-19 Response Mechanism was created as an emergency pandemic response and should be considered a legacy or closing mechanism rather than a current open grant opportunity.

Important Grant Details:

The Global Foundation’s grantmaking generally tops $4 billion a year, with most grants ranging from $10 million to over $100 million.

The Global Fund does not accept unsolicited proposals from individual nonprofits through a conventional foundation application process.
Funding applications may be developed only after an eligible applicant receives an allocation letter. Requests are usually submitted by a Country Coordinating Mechanism and must reflect an inclusive country dialogue. The CCM identifies priorities and nominates one or more Principal Recipients to manage the proposed grants. Grant Cycle 8 covers the 2026–2028 allocation period. Funding-request deadlines are organized into several submission windows, but these are deadlines for eligible applicants with allocations—not public nonprofit application rounds.
Cold outreach to the Global Fund Secretariat is unlikely to generate a stand-alone grant. A nonprofit will generally need to demonstrate how its work fills a documented gap in a national disease plan, serves populations prioritized by the country response and can be incorporated into a credible implementation and budget structure.
The best prospects are established government agencies, multilateral organizations, international NGOs, national civil society organizations and community-led groups with strong disease-specific expertise, local relationships, sound financial systems and the ability to meet demanding reporting, safeguarding and performance requirements.
Organizations working outside eligible countries, general health groups without a clear HIV, tuberculosis or malaria connection, stand-alone biomedical researchers and small nonprofits seeking a direct unrestricted award are less likely to receive funding.
Prospective grantees should consult the fund’s eligibility page before applying for funding.
For general inquiries or application assistance, staff may be reached via email or online form.

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Last updated on August 3, 2026