Round 7 of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which launches March 1, 2007, offers an important opportunity to fund health system strengthening, including the health workforce. In the past, the Global Fund has permitted applicants to seek support for health system strengthening actions that are necessary and linked to reducing the impact and spread of any or all of the three diseases: AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. Similar criteria are expected this year, and applicants should review them in the Global Fund's Round 7 Guidelines when they become available on March 1. The Global Fund therefore can be used to support critical health workforce investments, including funding a portion of a national health workforce strategy, that will be needed to advance efforts to combat these diseases. For example, in 2005, Malawi used the Fund to support part of its Emergency Human Resource Programme, including recruiting, training, and increasing compensation for community-based health workers, recruiting and retaining more than 300 health workers needed to staff ART clinics, and expanding pre-service training capacity. To prepare for Round 7, health workers, ministry of health officials, and other individuals and institutions that have an interest in their countries' health systems are strongly encouraged to consider utilizing this opportunity for strengthening health systems. If interested, you should immediately contact members of your country's Country Coordinating Mechanism to discuss this potential, as well as the national process and timeline for developing these proposals. The proposals are expected to be due to the Global Fund in early July 2007. Information on members of Country Coordinating Mechanisms is available through country pages on the Global Fund's website, http://www.theglobalfund.org. If external support will be required in developing the proposal, please contact your WHO Country Office. Please also take advantage of resources to help guide proposal development, including several specifically related to health system strengthening. For general guidance on applying for the Global Fund, please see guides available at: http://www.aidspan.org/index.php?page=guides. As material becomes available on the Global Fund and health system strengthening, it will be made available through the website of the Global Health Workforce Alliance: http://www.who.int/workforcealliance. The Guidelines for last year's Round 6 of the Global Fund are available at: http://www.theglobalfund.org/pdf/round6/Guidelines%20for%20Proposals_Round%206_En.pdf (see pages 23-24 for health system strengthening information), and a guide published for Round 6 on using the Global Fund to support health system strengthening is available through: http://www.physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/report-2006-05-23.html (and is in the process of being updated for Round 7). The Guidelines for the upcoming Round 7 will be available on the Global Fund's website (http://www.theglobalfund.org) on March 1.