In the 2013 ATI, we look at two donors who specifically fund AIDS-related programmes: the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Global Fund. It’s a mixed picture in terms of aid transparency.

THE GOOD: The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria fares well on the 2013 ATI, coming in 6^th place. In addition to publishing good quality data to IATI, the Global Fund produces a lot of cutting-edge data (including  grant performance, disbursements to date, expected results, etc for each grant and funding decisions)  available to all users on its website – through its grants portfolio database.  In general there is a vast amount of detail on their processes, monitoring and evaluation requirements, frameworks and tools easily accessible on their website.

THE UGLY: The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is largest international health initiative ever dedicated to a single disease – and it comes last out of the six U.S. institutions ranked in the ATI. It is also in the very poor category overall. PEPFAR’s largest recipient of aid in 2011 was South Africa, to which it gave close to $550m – but because it buries aid information in PDFs, which are highly redacted and not easily searched or analysed, it is not possible to see details of its aid activities in that country. This means a significant sum of money lacks accountability to the U.S. taxpayer.

Also included in the ATI is the GAVI Alliance, an organisation that is keen to support the delivery of a future AIDS vaccine. GAVI is one of the most transparent aid organisations globally. Its data is published to a high quality, and it has been responsive to recipient countries’ calls for timely, up-to-date and reliable information on current and future aid flows.

Funding for the fight against AIDS is provided by many different organisations worldwide. Substantial funders include the UK, France and Germany, although most agencies included in the ATI provide some funding for HIV/AIDS, highlighting the importance of greater transparency and comparability of data across the board.