Health Aid Governance in Fragile States: The Global Fund Experience

Fragile states represent key challenges for global health governance. This study analyzes Global Fund grant data from 122 recipient countries as an initial exploration into how well these grants are performing in fragile states as compared to other countries. Since 2002, the Global Fund has invested nearly US$ 5 billion in 41 fragile states, and most grants have been assessed as performing well. Nonetheless, statistically significant differences in performance exist between fragile states and other countries, which were further pronounced in states with humanitarian crises. This indicates that further investigation of this issue is warranted: variations in performance may be unavoidable given the complexities of health governance in fragile states, but may also have implications for how the Global Fund and others provide aid. For example, faster aid disbursements might allow for a better response to rapidly changing contexts, and there may need to be more of a focus on building capacity and strengthening health governance in these countries.