Good Financial Grant Practice: A Tool for Developing and Demonstrating Institutional Financial and Grant Management Capacity in Global Health

The administration and governance of grant funding across global health organizations presents enormous challenges. Meeting these challenges is crucial to ensuring that funds are used in the most effective way to improve health outcomes, in line with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 3, “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.” The Good Financial Grant Practice (GFGP) Standard (ARS 1651) is the world’s first and, currently, only international standard for the financial governance and management of grant funding. Through consensus building and global harmonization between both low- and middle-income and high-income country players, the GFGP Standard has achieved a leveling impact: GFGP applies equally to, and can be implemented by, all types of organization, regardless of location, size, or whether they predominantly give or receive funding. GFGP can be used as a tool for addressing some of the challenges of the current funding model. Here, we describe our experiences and lessons learned from implementing GFGP across 4 diverse research institutions in India, Nigeria, Colombia, and the Philippines as part of our National Institute for Health Research Global Health Research Unit on Genomic Surveillance of Antimicrobial Resistance.