PartnersGF - 2004-08-28

GF Partnership Forum Draft Report [11]
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Draft report of the the Global Fund 'Partnership Forum'
[Bangkok, Thailand] 7th & 8th July 2004


3. Other suggestions

A number of other suggestions and recommendations emerged from specific discussions at the Partnership Forum that are noted below for the record. Unlike the "key recommendations" listed above, the suggestions listed below did not benefit from in-depth discussion nor did they emerge in parallel in multiple working groups and break-out sessions. As such, no specific "action required" is specified.

3.1 Private sector

One working group expressed its support of the public / private partnership approach of the Fund, whilst noting that in most countries a true partnership mechanism with the private sector has yet to be devised. This group called on the Global Fund's stakeholders to increase their attention to this issue, including calling for proposed strategies from the private sector itself.

3.2 Commodities

One regional break-out group noted that the Global Fund is not yet promoting adequate interaction with existing commodity procurement mechanisms at global and country levels. There was a consensus within the group that the Fund at a minimum should be aggressively pursuing such collaboration. A minority of participants in the group felt that the Fund itself should develop a role in global procurement, but there was a great deal of opposition to this proposal from some other delegates.

Another regional break-out group emphasized that a number of the key commodities that make up a large part of the cost of existing Global Fund projects are likely to soon increase in price due to changing trade laws and patent issues. The Fund was encouraged to proactively examine the likelihood of key commodity price increases, and to develop an appropriate strategy to minimize the impact of such changes.

3.3 Principal Recipients

While endorsing strongly the importance of developing in-country support systems, one working group of the Partnership Forum suggested that in certain scenarios designating a multilateral or bilateral agency as a temporary PR of last resort might be a legitimate preference of a CCM.

3.4 Scope of CCMs / Proposals

One of the regional sessions proposed that the Fund should more actively promote both sub-national CCMs and proposals (in large and/or diverse countries) and supra-national or regional CCMs and proposals.

3.5 Debt Conversion

One of the working groups suggested that the Fund should include attention to debt swaps / debt conversion within its proposed new resource mobilisation strategy.