Implications of IOM PEPFAR evaluation for Global Fund

"The U.S. Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences recently completed a congressionally mandated impact evaluation of the PEPFAR HIV/AIDS program, which is the single largest ever health initiative of the U.S. government," Todd Summers, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic & International Studies' (CSIS) Global Health Policy Center, writes in the center's "Smart Global Health" blog. Summers highlights four key points from the report that he says "should resonate with Global Fund [to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria] leadership." Those points include: "Prevention of new HIV infections must be a higher priority"; "[w]e have to get better at measuring success"; "[e]ven when we can measure impact, attribution of benefits to specific funders is rarely possible"; and "[h]igher investment is needed to equip countries to collect and analyze data to measure progress and inform decision-making" (3/11).