PartnersGF - 2004-09-03

Re: GF-Related Management Information
Dare Odumuye
all_aidsng@yahoo.co.uk
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[Moderator’s Note: This is in response to Ms. Efem’s comments posted on August 31]
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Dear Colleagues,

Iyeme's comments are well articulated. The GFATM is for all and our approach should be individual and collective monitoring and evaluation of disbursements and impact.

Regards,
Dare Odumuye.
C.E.O
Alliance Rights, Nigeria.
15, University Crescent,
Old Bodija Estate,
Ibadan-Nigeria.
Tel:-234-805-2459813
e-mail:-all_aidsng@yahoo.co.uk

PartnersGF - 2004-08-31

RE: GF-related Management Information
Iyeme Efem
**************

Dear Colleagues,

I believe that we are in agreement with Peter Burgess in the depth of the mater but the spread. Indeed, what Peter is asking for, bottom line, is accountability both to the funders of the GFATM and the recipients - affected people. Besides having to carry sticks and standing behind recipient countries and their sub recipient implementing partners/agencies, the GF can only set out guidelines that have to be followed by countries to be able to access funds. They also have those guidelines for the countries to follow, when disbursing funds to sub recipients. Again, like I said before, accountability checks are included every step of the way, both at the GF/Country level and at the Country/Sub recipient level.

Short of having the Global Fund directly working in country to monitor these activities/relationships, you can only rely of the LFAs, on behalf of the fund, and the CCMs for the countries. That is why the CCMs are supposed to be representatives of all key "stakeholder-groups". These are the public/private sector, Civil Society, Faith based, and any others that might be unique in each country. Herein lies some of the challenges that Peter is referring to.

Accessing the Global Fund Website and viewing each recipient country profile might be a good way to see how much has been approved for each country and of that sum, how much has been disbursed. This can then be taken further, by checking out those countries to see how they have utilized the funds released to them, and indeed how the consumers/target audience are benefiting.

What Peter is indeed asking for is what the CCMs should be working on. In some of the countries I have related with, this is indeed is the case and the CCM is playing a central role. Some countries however still have a long way to go. The CCM is still largely controlled by the government and there is no civil society involvement in the monitoring and evaluation. This we can address at country level.

The challenges we will continue to face is that of our expectation of how the GFATM should operate compared to how it was set up to operate. It is worthy to note that It was primarily set up to scale up current programs in HIV/AIDS, Malaria and TB. and in fact it is still less than 3 years old. It may be too early to begin to ask for achievements at community level where implementation is carried out but there are achievements in the fund-flow systems that have been set up. I know this from several countries reviewed.

While it has many examples and experiences to draw from in supporting scale up i.e. that of other UN agencies and Bilateral donors, the GFATM is still unique in its set up. To encourage scale up, it has to work within the national framework of the countries strategic health plans. It is pertinent to note that some of these strategic plans were developed by governments, with little or no inputs from the private sector and of cause less than visible in put from the civil society group. It is therefore challenging to have to bring all these groups together to work as a team to scale up programs in the three component but how else can it be done differently? We know of several mechanisms but how involving and encompassing are these? I believe that we all have suggestions on what we like to see happen and we should channel them to the appropriate quarters, either at country level - CCM via the representative groups, to the country LFAs or to the Global Fund itself through the numerous avenues - Partnership Forum (regional and global), Board etc. We are doing so in the countries that I relate with. Things are moving slowly but steadily. The accountability point is taken very seriously in these countries and I believe that they are model example used by the GF. I will invite Peter to avail himself of the information from these countries to see if they meet his expectations and can then advise on how to improve upon what is in place. I believe that that is how we all can collectively make in puts into improving the way the GF works. The fund is for us and we need to help ourselves (and our children) gain from its presence.

Iyeme Efem
Country Director
Project Concern International - Ghana
P.M.B. CT 128
Cantonments, Accra 
            +233-21-760727        - Phone 
            +233-21-775789        - Fax
+233-21-775676 - DL 
            +233-20-8181506        - Mobile 
            +233-24-4887224        - Mobile
E-mail: IEfem@pci-gh.org

2004-08-29

GF-related Management Information
Peter Burgess
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Dear Colleagues

Iyeme Ifem has noted that I said that "the Global Fund has almost no feedback information" and suggests that this is too far reaching and perhaps a "fallacy of unsound generalization".

So be it. But where I come from in my early career as an MIS specialist, the challenge is to cut through the procedural and get to the reality.

Bluntly put, I am not that much interested in the procedures and TOR of the LFAs but I am very interested in seeing the results coming from the practical application of the procedures. And up to now I have seen not very much. In my career I have done hundreds of "assessments" or "supervisions" or "evaluations" in the development space over a period of decades and there is often a chasm between what is written to be done, and what is actually done.

Simply, I want now to see some valuable clear verifiable reporting about money flows and who is using the money, what is being done with the money, and what results are being achieved. I want to be able to see end to end accounting for the money. This is old fashioned accounting. Do good accounting, and you do not need sophisticated procedures, just basic ones that ensure that not a penny goes unaccounted for. In my early corporate career, we did both the accounting for every penny and the accounting (called management accounting) that helped managers make good decisions. That is all I want, but I want to be able to see it. I want transparency.

My concern is that if the truth be told, we are going to get the perfect procedure, and then, sadly, all the accounting and accountability and analysis will be done essentially in secret, probably not very well, and almost invisible to the global public.

I will happily invest some of my time in looking at information that is coming out of the "management information system", but I really don't want to have to spend time on the analysis of procedures when I want simply to get to the nuts and bolts of the accounting and performance analysis. Frankly, I expect the procedures to be good ...... now I want to move on and see that accounting is 100% and to the penny, the performance is good, and the world is getting good value from the GFATM program.

Is that too much to ask? Where in practical terms can I find what I am looking for?

Sincerely

Peter Burgess
An old fashioned accountant ..... with some development experience
Quality trained at Coopers and Lybrand!

in New York
Tel:               212 772 6918       
Email: Profitinafrica@aol.com

GF-related Management Information
Peter Burgess
*************

Dear Colleagues

Thank you for bringing back the PartnersGF forum. I look forward with interest to the ongoing discussion about various issues pertaining to the Global Fund.

If I may I would like to bring the issue of excellence in "management information" to center stage.

Unless I am very much misinformed, the Global Fund has almost no feedback information about the way the GFATM funds are actually used and the results achieved. Like almost everything else in the development space there is great focus on the "approval" process and almost no work done on the efficiency or otherwise of the use of funds. There appears to be good accounting and accountability and transparency in the approval process, and some in the disbursement to the Primary Recipient ....... but after that the public is in the dark.

The Local Fund Agents could be the way to provide transparency in the use of funds and the benefits being realised, but they do not appear to have any mandate to make this sort of information accessible to the public. I may be wrong, but I do not hear or see much evidence of easily accessible performance information related to the use of GFATM funds. If I am wrong, please let me know where in the LFA organizational framework there is easy public access to useful information.

I see this is a very big problem, and a major contributing factor to the crisis of failed development and the terrible health and HIV-AIDS pandemic.

I would like to see excellence in "management information" used to monitor and evaluate resource flows in development, including the resource flows from the Global Fund and others into helping with the health and HIV-AIDS crisis. The lack of excellence in "management information" is not a technical problem, but simply a failure of leadership that could easily be rectified.

I hope these matters can be brought up at the November meeting

Sincerely

Peter B

Peter Burgess
(in New York)
Tel:               212 772 6918       
Email: peterb@afrifund.com