2020, a period of challenges: looking back on an exceptional year

It is against this backdrop that the COVID-19 pandemic exploded, plunging the world into an ongoing health crisis, and threatening progress made in recent years toward eliminating HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis. Despite border closures, lockdown measures and personal protective measures, the L’Initiative team, experts, national health authorities (CCMs, representatives from civil society, national programs), technical partners, and the Global Fund coordinated to restructure technical assistance and enable countries to submit grant requests on time. The goal: to avoid any delays in allocating and implementing grants, which would deprive people affected by these diseases of medical and psychosocial care for several months.

L’Initiative is proud of the progress made to date, hand in hand with its partners. Against the backdrop of one the most critical health contexts, L’Initiative’s Steering Committee has committed an unprecedented amount: more than 9 million Euros were mobilized in 2020 to support partner countries with their funding requests, representing more than 6,000 days of expertise time.

74% of Global Fund disbursements go to countries in sub-Saharan Africa, where there is the greatest concentration of HIV and malaria cases. To link with and complement these investments, 88% of L’Initiative’s expert assignments undertaken in 2020 related to countries in sub-Saharan Africa. More than half of assignments targeted West African countries and/or assistance. The five countries that have received the largest level of committed funds are Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Madagascar, Senegal, and Gambia. These countries represent more than 50% of the technical expertise funding committed in 2020, through 24 expert assignments.

In addition to supporting access to funding, L’Initiative continued its support for formative, catalytic, and long-term projects, in addition to the Global Fund’s activities on the ground. L’Initiative’s financial investment reached record levels in 2020: through the “Vulnerable Populations” and “Health Systems Strengthening” calls for projects, the L’Initiative Selection Committee chose to support 14 projects, totaling 17 million Euros.

Three operational research projects were also selected, totaling nearly three million Euros. The objective of these projects was to contribute to improving the response to malaria in the greater Sahel region and in Central Africa

Finally, L’Initiative could not carry out its mission throughout the year 2020 without responding to the needs of partner countries in the fight against COVID-19. Its team and partners quickly proposed additional funding mechanisms to enable countries to organize the response. The Global Fund launched the $500 million COVID-19 Response Mechanism (C19RM). Its objectives are to strengthen the national response to COVID-19, to mitigate the impact on HIV, TB, and malaria programs and to prepare for the provision of diagnostics, treatment, and vaccines. With the decisive support of L’Initiative, more than US$ 118 million has been committed by the Global Fund to 10 countries. This support was highlighted by the Global Fund, which thanked Expertise France for its flexibility and support:

“ Without the two consultants hired by L’Initiative, the C19RM proposal likely would not have been submitted by the time the C19RM Fund closed on 30 September 2020. Un grand merci!”

Mark Saalfeld, Global Fund senior manager for Ghana

Thanks to L’Initiative, 10 countries have benefited from COVID-19 technical assistance missions: Benin, Gambia, Guinea, Cape Verde, Togo, Madagascar, Burundi, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo and Chad.

27 projects already financed by L’Initiative were reprogrammed without additional costs and/or additional financing in 2020 to meet the challenges of COVID-19, for a committed amount of 2.7 million euros.

Finally, L’Initiative has supported scientific research to the tune of more than 900,000 euros, by financing six operational research projects of the ANRS in connection with COVID-19. These projects will benefit 14 countries: Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Senegal, Mozambique, Uganda, Zambia, Rwanda, Madagascar, Mauritius, Cameroon, Gabon, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

Our selected projects (in french) and missions (in french) in 2020.