"In a bid to ensure the global fight against three of the world's most devastating diseases remains efficient, the Board of the ... Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria voted [Thursday] to begin an immediate transition" to a new grant-funding approach, the U.N. News Centre reports (11/15). The new funding model "is designed to be simpler, more flexible, and have greater impact in conquering the diseases," according to Reuters. "The new system relies upon closer discussions with the recipient countries, along with other donor groups and experts, over the design of their disease-fighting programs"; "will focus on addressing the needs of the poorest countries with the highest number of infections"; and will allow flexible grant cycles "instead of falling in set time periods, so that they can be coordinated better with a country's budgetary cycle, [the Board] said," the news agency writes (Dawson, 11/15).