GENEVA: The Global Fund is cutting around $1.4 billion from grants it has already awarded to fight global diseases as uncertainty swirls over whether donors will fulfil funding pledges, it said this week.

The Geneva-based NGO, whose full name is The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said that “rapidly-evolving changes in our donor landscape” meant the prospects for receiving all the pledged money “remain highly uncertain”.

The global aid sector has been reeling since US President Donald Trump returned to office in January, immediately fre­ezing most US foreign aid.

A number of other countries have also since slashed their development aid budgets, but the funding cuts by the United States — traditionally the world’s biggest aid donor — have hit the sector particularly hard.

“While we continue to pursue full pledge conversion, we still face the risk of a significant gap between current grant commitments and available resources,” a Global Fund spokesperson said in an email.

The Global Fund said it was implementing cost-cutting measures and a re-prioritisation of its current three-year grant cycle, which would be reduced by “approximately $1.43 billion”.

Published in Dawn, July 30th, 2025