Health technology assessments as a mechanism for increased value for money: recommendations to the Global Fund.

The Global Fund is experiencing increased pressure to optimize results and improve its impact per dollar spent. It is also in transition from a provider of emergency funding, to a long-term, sustainable financing mechanism. This paper assesses the efficacy of current Global Fund investment and examines how health technology assessments (HTAs) can be used to provide guidance on the relative priority of health interventions currently subsidized by the Global Fund. In addition, this paper identifies areas where the application of HTAs can exert the greatest impact and proposes ways in which this tool could be incorporated, as a routine component, into application, decision, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation processes. Finally, it addresses the challenges facing the Global Fund in realizing the full potential of HTAs.