Feb 22, 2006

Summary of Week 5 - Complementarity with the Global Fund’s Key Partners. Feb.12- 19.


Question of the week: What do you think the Global Fund should be doing to ensure that its work and that of its key partners complement each other?
Lead Contributors (In no particular order):

English Forum : Gerry Luongo, Sammi Fredenburg (WA, USA) , Rose Joshi (Nepal) , Tshering Lama (UK, Nepal), Timothy Mbugua (Canada), Luc Comhaire (Belgium), Sudhakar Malpe (India), Tom Mboya Okeyo (Kenya), Vanesa Marenco (Phillipines) , Jotham Mthembu (South Africa), Amadou Bah (Gambia), Tarig Dafallah (Sudan), Steve Knowles (Ghana), Michael Siggs (Russia), Kokoi (Phillipines)

French Forum : Adel Zeddam (North Africa), Razafindrafito Haja (Madagascar), Celestine Ele (Tunisia?), Mohamed Ould Bneijara (Mauritania) , Djadji (Chad), Babacar Thiam (Senegal), Aliochetu (North Africa), Bibbong Sibbib, Arthur Boika, Bernard Imama, Wamarou Traore (Burkina Faso), Sary Dembele (Burkina Faso), Souleyman Traore (Ivory Coast)

Spanish Forum : Walter Lara (El Savador), Mirta (Cuba), Benito Perez, Asolsida (Dominican Republic)

Russian Forum : Gennady Roshchupkin (Russia), Jurgis (Lithuania), Gregory (Russia), Azamat, Medet (Kyrgistan), Ulyanov


Summary of contributions:

English Forum


1. The Global Fund should facilitate communication, regional meetings, eForums and joint reviews. It should consider tying funding to positive collaboration.

2. Regarding its direct involvement in programme implementation, two emerging views were noted:
(a) That the Global Fund concentrates on funding while letting partners concentrate on policy debate and analysis, project planning and implementation at country level. Move to be a wider health fund financing priority areas.
(b)That it becomes more involved in the project implementation process on the ground, e.g. through capacity building, technical M&E, and financial auditing. Build technical and institutional capacities of CS organizations. Carry out regular Program implementation Review with key partners. Read More.

3. Replace the LFA system with Regional or Country presence depending on the portfolio of Grants, e.g. Fund portfolio manager of E. Africa to be based in Nairobi.

4. Institutionalize CCM into the country's health sector coordination structures to avoid duplication. Stimulate, through CCM, the establishment of working groups with specific tasks oriented towards field problems and aimed at rapidly solving them. Read.

5. Motivate governments through plan of action to commit funding with an aim to taking over financial responsibility. (South African contributor).

6. Regarding Tuberculosis, it was suggested that sustainability should be a major consideration from the proposals development stage. Proposals should focus on processes (management) in addition to results so that programmes continue after grants stop.

7. The Global Fund should rely on bottom-up planning and encourage integration of plans by many implementing partners (PRs). It should widen the scope of funding to the grassroots level NGOs and communities, rather than only through CCMs.

8. The Global Fund should play a leading role amongst donors, and encourage civil society to get involved in balanced numbers in different interventions.

9. The Global Fund should encourage adherence to one national strategic framework, in line with the three ones principles.

From the French Forum

10. The Global Fund must reorganize to avoid breaks occasioned by administrative delays, during programme implementation. Administrative deadlines must be clearly spelt out.

11. It would be more efficient if the fund built the technical and institutional capacities of local NGOs to enable them avoid politicization of health programmes

12. The Global Fund should support prevention programmes through behaviour change components and Information, Education and Communication (BCC & IEC). It should work more with NGOs and people living with HIV/AIDS. Involvement of local communities will be essential if it is to attain its targets.

13. The Fund should make institutional arrangements to provide pharmaceutical products and impregnated mosquito nets to specialized health centers and clinics in order to better reach target populations.

14. The Global Fund should strive to find ways of motivating each group in its architectural hierarchy (from proposal developers to, especially, the groups in the field) to achieve results. While doing this, it should avoid bias or favor in judgment or in the indicators that they use to evaluate processes and outcomes.

15. The Global Fund secretariat/ international administrative board should look for ways of compensating CCM members, in order to avoid instances of favoritism of certain local principal recipients and sub-recipients by the CCMs, and minimize the possibilities of corruption, including the various manifestations of influence.

16. International experts should be called upon to solve problems such as standardization of data and assessment of the capacities of national health systems.


From the Russian Forum

17. The Global Fund should determine, between the many organizations within a country (donors, CBOs, NGOs, Government, PLWHA, etc), who exactly are its key partners.

18. The Global Fund should encourage a more elaborate form of cooperation, by signing mutual agreements with local partners so that each organization or officer is better informed on partners to fight the three different diseases (AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.)

19. Where partners are already working efficiently, it will be simple to choose key local partners to coordinate directly with the Global Fund. However, in countries or areas that lack structured coordination between partners, the Global Fund must work with the leaders in the field who will ensure wider access to a maximum number of partners. Since the notion of key partners is itself heterogeneous, the contracts signed with each will not necessarily be similar in content.

20. The Global Fund should hold conferences and seminars within affected communities, with a large representation of NGOs, public health institutions, the media, and local health authorities. It should rely on its existing as well as potential partners to organize such meetings. The Global Fund should adopt a policy of creating long term professional partnerships.

Many thanks to you all. Please click on the following link to read and contribute to this week's forum:

http://forum.theglobalfund.org/en/viewtopic.php?t=77


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