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 GlobalFundtoFightAIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said that `rapidly-evolving changesin our donorlandscape` meant the prospects for receiving all the pledged money `remain highlyuncertain`.

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 coun-tries 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`.-AFP