Enhanced Financial Reporting (EFR) for The Global Fund (GFATM) Grantees
From January 1st, 2008, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) launched enhanced financial reporting to collect high-level financial information every year from all recipients of Global Fund grants. The enhanced financial reporting increases focus on financial accountability and transparency. The information collected is used (1) for external reporting and resource mobilization and (2) to support funding decisions.
The principal recipient (PR) is required to complete the EFR template with details of budget, expenditure, and variances by cost category, service delivery area, and by implementing entity for the grant. PRs are expected to use available information from their accounting systems, budgets, progress updates, and any other source of available information to complete the EFR. The PRs can use this information and make reasonable assumptions to complete the EFR format. The PR is not required to recode every transaction. The guidelines for completing the EFR template explain this in more detail.
As a certain amount of judgment is required to complete the EFR forms, the PRs should concentrate on putting in sufficient effort to ensure that the reports are materially accurate rather than using too many resources in an effort to achieve perfection at the expense of everyday grant implementation.
PRs are not required to resubmit their detailed budgets in the EFR format; however, when signing a grant agreement, the budget summary template should be used, which will be in the EFR format. If the detailed budget is in a different format than the summary budget, the PR should be able to reconcile the two documents.
LFAs are asked to review the PR’s work on completing the EFR form but should accept the information from the PR and report to Global Fund if they have concerns about the quality of the information or the process used.
The tool includes:
Presentation of the mechanism 
in English
Malaria financial reporting form 
in English, in French, in Spanish
Guidance for completion of the enhanced financial reporting template in English, 
in French, in Spanish
LFA review of the enhanced financial reporting template in English ,
Lessons learned from TB in English
- Tool Designer Organization:
- The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM)
- Contact:
- The relevant information about EFR is explained in the guidelines, and the secretariat will be happy to assist you with any EFR related query. Please contact the fund portfolio manager for your country or email info@theglobalfung.org.
Summary of main features
- Purpose
- Report high-level financial information from all recipients of Global Fund grants
- Scope of interventions
- The same mechanism is available for HIV and TB grants from GFATM. The financial data requested consists of budgets, expenditures, and variance analysis. It should be submitted together with the progress update and disbursement request. It should be reviewed by LFA prior to submission to the GFATM secretariat.
- Limitations
- PRs should concentrate on providing information that is as accurate as possible, particularly focusing on the current year’s reporting period, as this will be the most relevant for grant management. However, in many cases the accuracy of the report will depend on factors such as the length of the reporting period, quality of information systems, availability of human resources, complexity of the grant, etc. In cases where the information will be extremely difficult to get or very time-consuming, the PR can use high-level assumptions to complete the information in the report. This is expected to be the case for many grants that are now operating for several years and are near the end of the grant life.
- Output
- Financial reporting for GFATM grants
- Time frame
- Each grant should report this information at the end of each grant cycle year and at phase 2 within 45 days of the end of the reporting period
- Potential users
- GFATM grant principal recipient
- Skills required
- Spreadsheet use
- Type of software
- Excel, Word, and Adobe Acrobat Reader
- User manual available
- Guidance in PDF
- Type and length of training required
- NA
- Available languages
- English, French, and Spanish
- Country applications
- All principal recipients of Global Fund grants. The full list of GFATM granted countries is available from the Global Fund website.
- Last update and version
- November 2007