ATTACHMENTS TO THE CONCEPT NOTES ARE NOW BEING POSTED ON THE GLOBAL FUND’S WEBSITE

Author:

David Garmaise

Article Type:

Article Number: 5

The attachments are posted only after the grants related to the concept notes are approved

ABSTRACT The Global Fund has delivered on its undertaking to make attachments to the concept notes public. However, as with the notes, the attachments are released only after the grants related to the notes are approved, a process that usually takes several months. Aidspan called it a step in the right direction, but said that further steps are required.

The Global Fund is now publishing on its website three attachments to concept notes – the modular template attachment; the financial gap analysis and counterpart financing attachment; and the programmatic gap attachment. As with the concept note itself, which the Fund was already publishing, the attachments are only posted once the concept note makes it through the system and the grants emanating from the concept note are approved for funding.

Following representations made by Aidspan, the Fund informed GFO in June 2015 of is intention to publish the attachments.

The attachments, and the concept notes themselves, are available on the funding decisions page on the Global Fund’s website. Click on the name of a country to be taken to the country page. Look for the concept note section. It contains zip files for each approved concept note. Download and open the zip files to obtain the concept notes and the attachments.

The grant agreements will also be posted on this site as they become available.

Regional concept notes and attachments can also be accessed by downloading a spreadsheet on the funding decisions page. For regional notes, there are only two attachments: the modular template and the programmatic gap analysis. The financial gap analysis and counterpart financing attachment does not apply to regional proposals.

Note that the concept note and the attachments reflect what the applicant originally submitted. Invariably, changes are made to the proposed program when the concept note is reviewed by the Technical Review Panel and the Grant Approvals Committee and goes through the grant-making stage, a process which usually takes several months. As changes are made to the proposed program, the concept note and its attachments are not updated.

Aidspan comment:

We welcome the move to post the concept note attachments because it makes more information available and is consistent with the Global Fund’s commitment to transparency. It is a step in the right direction. However, there are two problems with the current system. The first is that the concept notes and the attachments are made public only after the grants emanating from the concept notes are approved for funding. As we noted above, this process can take several months. (It took over a year for the Nigeria grant approved in December, though this was exceptional case.) There is no reason why the concept notes and the attachments should not be made public when they are submitted.

The second problem is that for each grant there are no documents being made public that provide a detailed description of the program that will be implemented. We only know what the applicant originally proposed. We don’t know what changes were made to the proposed program during the review of the concept note and during grant-making. The performance framework that forms part of the grant agreement does not provide the level of detail that is contained in the modular template. Aidspan has suggested to the Secretariat that the modular template be updated to reflect the changes and then made public.