Civil society can be refer to as an organization formed by the people within a given country such as NGOs. Some of these societies aim to promote education on HIV/AIDS Tuberculosis and Malaria. Involvement of these organizations in GF funding programs is important and I suggest them to be the campaign team of the GF.

 

Criteria to select them should be based on those registered with defined office. Activities of these organizations with particular reference to Tecom foundation are seen below:

Challenges faced by these organization are Lack of fund such as money, automobile, horns, preventive materials, such as mosquito net, condoms and other campaign materials such as canopies and chairs. Poor road is another issue. What GF can do to promote the work of this organization is to organize training for them, financial assistance, provision of automobile and other logistic materials mention above. .

The issues around Civil Society and the implementaton of programs need first and foremost to be defined in the context of who is Civil Society.

If it purports to describe a function that is carried out by one outside government and non-governmental institution, as is common in a lot of circumstances, then Civil Society is comprised of people with different skills and abilities to run programs. As part of Civic duties, prominent and non-prominent people collect money and other goods for distribution to the less fortunate at Christmas for example. If these eminent people can be entrusted with funds and they keep books of accounts that are audited and disbursements are done transparently surely these organised groups of people can be given responsibility to implement global fund programs.

 

The global fund processes have proposals that have workplans and budget. Some of the eminent people who form part of civil society and work within certain communities can interpret what is written down and translate the plans into actionable steps without problems. The only foreseeable problem may be the solidness of the structures that may exist in the civil society groups. In their own individual right the individuals in civil society are great but there may be no cohesion needed to work as a team or institution to be able to implement programs.

Regarding involvement & function of civil society in implementation of GF program, understanding & role of social culture & developed social institutions which constitute civil-societies are important in humorous implementation.

In humorous implementation of GF program, clear definition & functions of social institutions should be based on GF objectives. Only technically,  financially, scientifically, ethically advanced social institutions can perform & give complete civil society function of GF specific objectives. Definition & function of civil society & social institutions may differ in various cultures, religions & ethnic-based countries. In implementation of GF program & processes in various countries, GF program may counter with different & diverse culture, social, political, constitutional, religion ,ethnic, economical, environmental, conditions & factors.These factors & conditions do not exist similarly in many countries. In implementation of GF program, involvement of civil society concept, structure, process, social acceptability should be more detailted & broader than specific performance evaluation e.g. Performance Based Funding.

Though private, public sectors & organisations have given statistics for donations & contribution but its accessibility & accountability should be more socially acceptable in less GDP & less essential for survival, countries.

1. Who will form civil society (culture & social institutions)?
2. What is the structure of civil society in implementation of GF program?

These two questions could give understanding & needs of less GDP countries with religious, ethnic background to GF for promotion of civil-society role in implementation of GF program.

Civil society is a social representation of Govt, legal, economical, & constitutional institutions in a country. Civil society should consist of democratic values, gender sensitive, culture, understanding of basic health system, social legal environment, medium of bilateral, multilateral co-ordination approaches, social & infrastructure solutions of social problematic conditions attributed diseases. Formal interaction of community,groups & organisation with civil society could give best way in implementation of GF program.

Civil society can represent agreements, socio-legal structure, legal prohibition on abnormal practices, produce article & constitution, liberties for affected population, providing rights & judgement, general equilibrium analysis of economical factors (impact of diseases) for obtaining bilateral & multilateral co-ordination. Civil society should give constitutional support in prevention of social discrimination by providing socio-legal structure to affected population/groups/community in a country.

GF could give potential influence, mobilization of funds, monitoring innovative measures to civil society & community-based organisations. Civil society, which is responsible for humorous representation of govt, could include cost effective measures, use of technology, geographical connectivity for affected population, adequate medical services, maintaining human & social aspects of medical services. Civil society can play an important role in reducing conflicts, disagreement, problematic judgment, unclear decisions by social interventions & decision making capacity. Complete representation, providing information of clinical conditions ,commercial support, ethical behaviour approaches may give useful contribution in implementation of GF program. GF could give financial contribution, resources allocation, communication in social intervention, decision making capacity & monitoring to civil society in less health systems infrastructure countries.

Thank you
ASHISH SRIVASTAVA
ex-Internatonal Marketing
CCM(SEAR-INDIA)81237

Dear Team,

Here's a thought l have had as l read through the presentations. I won't be techy. I will just mention what l think and feel is not looked at keenly.

 

I am a big advocate of implementation of policies and projects. The problem we have is that there are all these beautifully written documents on our shelves that never get to see the daylight of implementation. But that's not what l am discussing today. One of my greatest desires is to see responsible funding.I know there are mechanisms that have been set up to help with the country projects and all. But how sure is the Global Fund that these teams you have set up truly follow through?

 

The problem l encounter with funding partners who l serve with is that they get shocked about the corruption the witness when they release funding. What they don't know is that they are part of enabling the very corruption go ahead. Like l said earlier l want to see responsible funding. Go ahead set up every committee you can. But do you as the GF team have people coming down to check the projects? My rationale is usually, there's no point in setting up a whole 20million dollar fund if you can't spare a million to make sure things are what they seem on the ground.

 

Borrow a leaf from a gentleman l watched on TV documentary. He came in from one one of the Nordic countries. His organization was giving out prestigious awards that included a cash incentive. To make sure that they weren't getting fake submissions, he was sent to visit with the organizations which had no idea he was going to show up. Lucky for them, he actually was very impressed. That is what l call responsible funding. I know others will think this is too crazy and unfriendly. But believe me, if you gave my organization $30,000 to do a project and l know that one aspects of the funding is that you will show up any time, trust me l will implement without taking corners. No, colleagues, it is not unnecessary pressure. This is the level that both lack of responsible funding and transparency has taken us.

 

I also want to witness organizations and funders working in sync as the project moves on. You know why we have so many project leaders say...'okay lessons learned' at the end of a three year project? Because of the stingent measures that do not allow for proxy indicators that come up as projects get implemented. When these indicators show up a lot of project implementors don't report them because that was not supposed to have happened. But because they know what indicators and outcomes they had forwarded they wait until those come up. When they don't, they wait to do a report on lessons learned. Why, l ask, can't a funding partner and an implementing partner work together and appreciate those beautiful surprises that come up as a result of project implementation, then shape the project accordingly thereby experience superior results?

 

Other than responsible funding, my desire is to see an understanding of culture when projects are set up. You would think because the CCMs are based in the implementing countries they would understand the setting of the projects. No it doesn't work like that. Yes, a good job is being done. But more needs to be done. A perfect example of this is when we implemented a project where the receipients either refused or didn't know how to do project reports. We actually came up with verbal reporting which was documented and worked perfectly with the funding partner. This group simply viewed writing project reports as being intimidating. We had to come to their level and understand where it was they were coming from. As a result, we worked with verbal reporting. The alternative was to go back to the funding partner and report that there was no report.

 

Those are my thoughts for now.

 

Thank you for reading.

 

Maria Wanza, Visibility Trust

Dear E forum:

Civil Societies should be involved at all levels of GF project implementation. The overall objective is to build and strenghten the capacity of civil society for a sustainable, efficient and effective service delivery. Civil society should be co-implementers with local authorities since they can give complimentary support in terms of equipment, materials, service and financial resources.

 

GF should have a tripartite Memorandum of Understanding with civil society which normally establish a working relationship between them (GF, Civil Society and the community). GF should ensure that civil society should work in close collaboration with technical and administrative personnel in the country.

 

GF should ensure that civil society build capacities and ensure implementation arrangements at the community level in collaboration with local authorities, identify training needs, adapt/prepare training materials based on generic modules to be developed by GF and traing and build capacities of CBOs to carry out participatory community planning and other project activities.

 

Civil society should also be assisted by GF to develop community-based plans for ensuring the GF project implementation and participate in advocacy and communication strategies and carry out support and supervision in the communities.

 

GF should ensure that civil society have sufficient staff time for its competent staff who have expertise and experience in themetic areas of the project. GF should ensure that civil society establish the accounting, disbursing and financial systems by the project. GF should then ensure that increased public awareness and knowledge on channels and mode of public service are done by civil society.

 

Also they should improve quality and legitimacy of decisions which must be taken collectively, and strengthen common ground for ownership of government and civil society organisations programmes. GF should promote strengthening mutual trust with civil society through increased involvement of lower local authorities .

 

For Cambodia Experiences, Civil society and the implementation of the program very hard to work with government, as they don't care about NGOs Civil society, like my PHA network to work close with government program which got fund from Global Fund through Ministry of Health, so GF should be improving the monitoring of the grants to be quality. Anyway, improve to involve of NGOs and civil society more and strengthen of the Capacity of them.

From Bangladesh experience, I can say that - it is not easy to work with civil society or to engage them for the further improvement of the program. Normally civil society is a completely different group of people from others. These people are influential in their society, they want to lead the community, they are engaged with the different types of social activities – so that they have very limited time to spend for a particular program and in maximum cases, they don’t bother for a small amount of money, such as perdiem to attend a meeting, lunch, etc. But these people so eager to establish them as a social leader in the community. In this perspective, if we can take the following steps to engage them, may be we’ll get some results:

• First try to enrich them with enough information about the program.
  
  
• Secondly, invite them as a speaker in the different type of advocacy meeting or gathering, such as different social awareness program etc.
  
  
• Invite them to prepare a detailed plan of activities for the respective local area.
  
  
• Finally, some specific assignments can be given to the civil society (to organize press conference or organize discussion session with the local elites or administrative people etc). If possible, a separate committee can be formed within the people of respective civil society.
  
  
• A yearly award (with a crest or something like that) can be given to some of the dynamic people to encourage them. But, this is a bit risky, as those who will not get this honor, may be they will stop their work completely. However, it depends on the local situation.

Civil societies in iraq play the major role regarding implementation of  THE PROGRAM.

 

The Iraqi Anti TB society, which is spearheading the NGOs in iraq, is taking the big burden toward proper implementation, and this is achieved through the solid activities and the trust it gained from the iraqi community regarding its committment in implemeting the programs related to Tuberculosis disease and its impact on the community.

One person would not be able to provide the best ways to involved the civil society in the implementation of the global funds programs especially in the country level. All the contributions we are going to provide in this forum should be re-examined by experts from the global funds and all such other commitee that they may wish to form inorder to facilitates the best decisions inorder to get the best ways to involved the civil society.

 

My question is would the CCM continues to maintain her roles and capacities in the country levels? If yes, the civil society should be involved as a consulatative and monitoring committee. By such roles, the civil society would also be involved in the implementation of the global fund projects in the country level. That means ,the CCM has to consult with the civil societies representatives of the global fund in the country level when ever they plan/dicsuss implementions of global funds programmes.

 

The global fund should program short term training courses in geneva or Kenya (as the headquarters is always there in Africa) for the selected civil societies representatives.This will enable the civil societies have a clear vision of the global fund programs and laws.the course may last up to 1-2 weeks in order to reduce cost.

 

The selection process of suitable civil societies that the global funds could work with at the country level could be done gradually, through introductions, global fund direct interactions etc. Global fund should as well through this forum select members that could help them provide certain information and statistic at the country level. All these will help the global fund reach at beter decisions.

The best implementation of any program is without any doubt by including the "Civil Society". The definition of "Civil Society" has been adopted by the UN, saying that "private sector" i.e. profit-making activity is excluded.

 

With regard to Malaria activities, excluding this sector means that most important voices which have quite some experience directly from the front-lines, are not asked to give input. As a representative of the "private sector", I nevertheless feel strongly that input from these bodies should be included into the implementation process of GF programs, too.

 

Is "profit-making" that bad? Isn't also allowing to re-invest into R&D for e.g. neglegted diseases? Further, in diseases such as malaria, there is nearly no profit possible (possibly with the exception of drugs for prophylaxis). The successful implementation of any GF program should rely on experience and expertise from all parties involved.

 

Public - Private Partnerships have proven to be very effective. Some years ago, nobody would have thought that such cooperations would be possible, todays reality shows that it is not only possible but urgently required. There should not be any limits at all with regard to input on implementation processes, otherwise, bad examples will be increasing.

 

Best regards,

 

Dieter