Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 04/2014

The Global Fund's China Legacy

Yanzhong Huang

March 2014

Council on Foreign Relations

Abstract

Over the past decade, the Global Fund's presence in China has left behind a deeply mixed legacy. Although the Fund's money has made important contributions to China's fight against AIDS, TB, and malaria, as well as its domestic health governance in ideational, institutional, and policy domains, it is associated with uneven progress in grant performance, low value for money, unintended effects on civil society–building, and enduring challenges to scaling-up and sustainability. In this International Institutions and Global Governance program Working Paper, CFR Senior Fellow Yanzhong Huang and Jia Ping, chief executive director of the Health Governance Initiative, argue that the mixed legacy has important implications for global health governance, the Fund's future financing model, and China's handling of its own public health challenges.