PartnersGF - 2004-08-21

GF- Partnership Forum Draft Report [5]
************************************

Draft report of the the Global Fund 'Partnership Forum'
[Bangkok, Thailand] 7th & 8th July 2004


[Key recommendations – continued]


2.4 Country coordinating mechanisms (CCMs)

Some of the liveliest discussions at the Partnership Forum concerned the composition and operation of Country coordinating mechanisms (CCMs), and more specifically whether the Global Fund should require that certain principles be respected, or simply recommend that such principles be respected. In all the working groups, the discussion initially reflected dynamics that had recently been visible at the most recent Global Fund board meeting, with civil society participants for the most part arguing for requirements, and representatives of governments in the South for the most part arguing for recommendations only. Fortunately, the considerable amount of time allocated to these discussions led to some genuine breakthroughs that should be urgently considered by the Global Fund's GPC (governance & policy committee?) and presented to the full Board for decision in November.

On the issue of composition of CCMs, two of the four groups made progress by breaking down an "omnibus" recommendation into specific components, discovering that there was a full consensus that quite a number of the specific guidelines should be considered as requirements, including:

- That all CCMs must meaningfully include people living with HIV and people affected by tuberculosis and/or malaria; and,

- That all CCMs must include representatives from the NGO sector.

Furthermore, these groups reached consensus that CCMs should be required to follow certain operating principles, including:

- That the CCM chair and vice-chair must be from different constituencies (e.g. government and civil society);

- That CCM Chairs, CCM Vice-Chairs and PRs must be from different entities;

- That CCMs must be subject to strong standards for the management of conflict of interest, issued by the Global Fund's Board;

- That CCMs must establish transparent mechanisms for input of all stakeholders to proposal development and review;

- That CCMs must establish transparent mechanisms for participation of stakeholders in grant implementation; and

- That CCMs and CCM secretariats must be able to benefit from financial and technical assistance to ensure "good practice" in governance.

- That CCMs and CCM secretariats must be able to benefit from clearer operational guidelines to be issued by the Global Fund.

These two working groups agreed that the Global Fund should ensure that the standards above are defined in such a way as to be auditable and, thereafter, that they CCM performance in this regard is audited.

A number of further proposed requirements were put forward by some participants in these two working groups, but no consensus was reached as to whether or not they should indeed be imposed by the Global Fund:

- The establishment of a minimum percentage of civil society and community representatives on CCMs;

- The mandatory or recommended involvement of the private sector on CCMs; and,

- The establishment of a system within countries whereby NGOs and community representatives select their own representatives, rather than being selected by the government or another body.

A third working group noted that the overwhelming majority of their participants agreed with the suggestions noted above, but that a small number of delegates did not agree.

The fourth working group proposed a slightly different approach, agreeing on the need for strong operational guidelines to be issued by the Global Fund secretariat and for "auditable" standards, and agreeing that it was important to go beyond "recommendations" to CCMs. In contrast to the other groups, however, the majority of participants in the fourth working group suggested that concurrence with the new guidelines should be promoted by rewarding high-performing CCMs with "incentives", rather than having the guidelines be mandated or required.

Finally, many delegates within both working groups and regional break-outs expressed concern that CCMs do not always adequately include people with a background in malaria and/or tuberculosis (as opposed to HIV/AIDS), and that there was often inadequate attention to the involvement of women. Other constituencies said by some parties to be under-represented included labour, young people and technical partners.

Action required:

- The Global Fund secretariat should immediately begin developing much more rigorous, and auditable, standards for CCMs, paying particular attention to CCM composition, transparency and inclusion in decision-making, and mitigation of conflict of interest.

- The Board's GPC committee should meet as soon as possible, and certainly before November 2004, in order to prepare a new resolution on these matters for consideration of the entire Board in November 2004.