GLOBAL FUND’S FINAL KPI DATA FOR 2016 SHOW MOSTLY GOOD RESULTS
Author:
Mary Lloyd
Article Type:Article Number: 10
Ten targets were achieved or surpassed; four were not met; and one looks unlikely to be reached
ABSTRACT The Global Fund has delivered solid performance on 10 of the 15 key performance indicators due for reporting. The final KPI data for 2016, which were reported to the Board at its meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, also show that the Fund has not met four of its targets and is at risk of not meeting one more.
The end-2016 data on the Global Fund’s corporate key performance indicators (KPIs) show good results for most of the KPIs, including two where the Fund showed particularly strong performance. The targets for 10 of the 15 KPIs were achieved or surpassed. The targets for four KPIs were not met, and it appears the Fund will not achieve parts of the target for a fifth KPI.
The end-2016 results were presented to the Board at its meeting on 3-4 May in Kigali, Rwanda. These results are for the “old” KPIs that were developed over the last few years. The Global Fund has a new KPI framework for 2017-2022 and a new set of targets (see GFO article) which are being used to measure performance from the start of this year. Full reporting on the new KPIs starts in early 2018. While the Fund winds up the old set of indicators, we may see progress against both sets of indicators being reported to the Board during the rest of this year.
The 10 KPIs whose targets were achieved or surpassed were as follows:
KPI 1 – Performance against strategic goals
KPI 3 – Performance against strategic service delivery targets
KPI 4 – Efficiency of Global Fund investment decisions
KPI 6 – Alignment with national reporting systems
KPI 9 – Effective operational risk management
KPI 10 – Value for money
KPI 11 – Grant expenses forecast
KPI 13 – Resource mobilization
KPI 14 – Domestic financing for AIDS, TB and malaria
KPI 15 – Efficiency of grant management operations
The Global Fund has demonstrated particularly strong results for the “infections averted” part of KPI 1, which measures the estimated number of lives saved and infections averted over five years from 2012 to 2016. The Fund was aiming to see 140 million new infections averted by the end of 2016, but by the end of 2015, the number had already hit 146 million.
The other target for KPI 1 was 10 million lives saved by 2016. By the end of 2015, 8.5 million lives had been saved, and projections show the target will be met.
The other indicator where higher than expected results were achieved was KPI 10, which gauges savings made by leveraging the Global Fund’s purchasing power. The target was a 7% reduction in spending on commodities. Instead, the Fund achieved a 14.4% reduction, which saved the organization $149 million.
Target partially achieved
The data needed to calculate performance against target for KPI 2 (quality and coverage of services) are only available once a year. No new information has been provided since mid-2016 (see GFO article).
This target has seven components. The Fund is expected to miss the target for two of the components: antiretroviral coverage of HIV-positive TB patients, and of pregnant HIV positive women. The Board was told that the underperformance in these areas is being examined with the Fund’s partners.
Targets not met
The four KPIs whose targets were not met were as follows:
KPI 5 – Health system strengthening
KPI 7 – Access to funding
KPI 12 – Human rights protection
KPI 16 – Quality of management and leadership
KPI 5
The Board had already been warned that the Fund was unlikely to meet the target for KPI 5, which is based on a score that rates service ability and readiness. The goal was for 60% of countries surveyed to show at least a five percentage point improvement. Only four countries were able to provide the repeat score needed to calculate an improvement, and only two of them met the target.
The Board has been told that all four countries for which results were available did show improvement in service availability and readiness. Results from five more countries are being finalized. One of these will deliver the repeat score needed to calculate the KPI.
KPI 7
It was clear late last year that the Fund was also unlikely to meet the target for KPI 7, even though the target had been revised downwards a year earlier.
KPI 7 monitors progress towards the organization’s 2012-2016 strategic goal of evolving its funding model to provide predictable funding opportunities, by measuring the time from concept note submission to first disbursement. The target was for 75% of grants submitted in 2015-2016 to take 10 months or less. The result for 2016 was that only 54% of grants were processed in under 10 months.
The Board was told that the Secretariat has not been able to accelerate the grant-making and Board-approval-to-grant-signing stages of the process because it does not have enough control over them. The Board was also told the grant-signing-to-disbursement stage is under direct Secretariat control, yet performance has not improved. The Fund expects that the Accelerated Integration Management (AIM) project, which is intended to streamline grant management, will help to speed up this stage by making the Annual Decision-Making Form clearer and by simplifying the workflow.
KPI 12
This KPI has been proven to be an ineffective measure, because no complaints made against the Global Fund qualified, and so the organization was not able to demonstrate improvement. The intention was to have all human rights complaints made against programs the Fund supports identified through risk management tools, and resolved through Secretariat procedures. However, for the past two years, no qualifying complaints have arisen.
The Office of the Inspector General received 108 allegations of wrongdoing in 2016. Of those, 18 had a human rights component, but none met the Fund’s human rights “five minimum standards” criteria, which would warrant an OIG intervention.
The Fund has completely revised how it measures human rights protection in its new set of KPIs.
KPI 16
This KPI uses the Towers Watson Manager Quality scale. The 2016 target was 80% of items in the manager quality survey receiving a favorable response. The result came in at 78%, which is unchanged from last year.
The End 2016 Corporate Key Performance Indicator Results, Document GF-B37-26, should be available shortly at www.theglobalfund.org/en/board/meetings/37.
