The Global Fund has praised Kenya for presenting the 'most gay-friendly' budget for the Sh38 billion grant to fight HIV, TB, and malaria.
The donor praised the Ministry of Health's plans to spend a huge chunk of the money on men who have sex with men, sex workers, and drug addicts.
The said populations have higher HIV burden mostly because they engage in activities that are considered illegal.
"The funding request demonstrates evidence-based prioritisation of key populations affected by both HIV and TB," Global Fund's technical review panel said.
The Geneva-based organisation funds most HIV prevention programmes in Kenya.
The panel, chaired by TB expert Dr Jeremiah Chakaya, which reviews all proposals submitted for funding, also described Kenya's proposal as 'detailed and honest'.
Kenya's request for the Sh38 billion grant was approved last December but the panel's report has been released only this month.
Part of the money will also go to malaria prevention.
"These three diseases are major contributors to our illness burden and deaths. So, we have to make sure that we work hard so as not to roll back on the gains that we have made over the past six years," Erjesa Waqo, head of the national malaria control programme, said during the signing last month.
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MSM, sex workers and injecting drug users will get six per cent of the total HIV budget in the funding.
Aidspan, a non-governmental group that monitors the Global Fund, said six percent may not seem like a lot, but the grant is heavily commoditised, meaning there was not much room for discretionary spending.
HIV prevalence is estimated to be 29.3 per cent among sex workers, 18.2 per cent among the MSM and 18.3 per cent among people who inject drugs.
These levels are three to five times greater than the national average of 5.6 per cent.
Ishtar, a lobby group for MSM, also praised Kenya's budget.
"There was a lot of key population involvement from the concept writing till the proposal was approved," Peter Njane, Ishar's CEO and a member of the Kenya coordinating mechanism - the team that developed the proposal, said.
The grant will also fund self-testing and pre-exposure prophylaxis.
It will also fund interventions for expanding TB case-finding in the private healthcare sector, where many TB cases elude identification and registration with national TB control systems.
The TRP supported this approach but recommended that the Kenyan program expand private sector engagement to include HIV services in addition to TB.