Principal Recipients (PRs) are required to submit a national or grant-specific Monitoring and Evaluation plan (specific to a disease or for a combination of the three diseases, depending on the country approach), as agreed with in-country partners and the GF Country Team. 

The M&E Plan is an essential document for a country as it describes how the M&E system should be run.  It contains detailed information regarding indicators, data management, data quality assurance, M&E coordination, capacity-building for M&E, information products and their dissemination, and M&E budgets. It should be accompanied by an annual costed workplan describing the planned M&E activities for each year including the strengthening measures to improve the M&E system identified through M&E system or data quality assessments. The M&E Plan is instrumental for monitoring the National Strategic Plan(s) to which the Global Fund-supported programme contributes.

The Principal Recipient (PRs) is expected to submit to the Global Fund a detailed plan for monitoring the Program implemented by the Principal Recipient. Not later than ninety (90) days after the grant start date (NB: The 90-day timeline was confirmed by the Global Fund in early July 2024, as the M&E Plan guidelines stipulate submission at the time of grant signing).

There may be certain cases in which submitting a national plan is not feasible, for example:

• for regional multi-country grants. These require developing a specific regional M&E Plan that is aligned as much as possible with the national M&E Plans of all the countries concerned.
• when the national M&E Plan is not sufficiently detailed for Global Fund requirements or does not cover the full scope of the proposal. In this case, the Principal Recipient should prepare an annex to the national M&E Plan to provide the missing information or develop a separate document that is consistent with the National M&E Plan. Whenever relevant, the Global Fund and the Principal Recipient will agree on a timeline to produce an updated version of the National M&E Plan that fully covers the scope of activities supported by the national program and the Global Fund.
• when the country does not have a National M&E Plan and the process of developing one will take longer than the grant negotiation period. In this case, a provisional document can be drawn up and updated or replaced once the National M&E Plan is developed.

See detailed guidance for the preparation of M&E Plan in Global Fund M&E Plan Guidelines.  While the format and structure of the M&E Plan are discretionary, the Principal Recipient should ensure that the components outlined in the M&E Plan guidelines are included.