Round 6 Applicants, Start Preparing Now

Author:

Bernard Rivers

Article Type:

Article Number: 4

ABSTRACT CCMs considering applying to the Fund in Round 6 are advised to begin preparatory work right away. Many conditions have to be met that CCMs may not yet have dealt with.

[The following article represents information and advice from Aidspan, publisher of GFO, for CCMs that are planning to submit Round 6 applications to the Fund.]

When the Global Fund releases the Round 6 Proposal Form and Guidelines for Proposals some time in the next thirty days, a special issue of GFO will be sent out to announce the news. As soon as possible thereafter, Aidspan will release “The Aidspan Guide to Round 6 Applications to the Global Fund.” This will include a chapter on lessons learned from the TRP’s comments on Round 3, 4 and 5 applications, and a chapter providing step-by-step advice for filling out the Round 6 application form. The new Guide will be announced in GFO.

However, CCMs considering applying in Round 6 are advised to begin preparatory work right away. They could, for instance, download Aidspan’s Round 5 Guide from www.aidspan.org/guides; much that it says will be relevant to Round 6.

The Fund’s CCM Guidelines require that CCMs (a) involve a broad range of stakeholders, both within and outside the CCM, in the proposal development process; (b) develop a transparent process to solicit and review submissions for possible integration into the CCM’s Global Fund proposal; and (c);document that process. Any CCM that has not already developed and documented a process for proposal development should do so as soon as possible.

In its Round 5 Guidelines for Proposals, the Fund stated that CCMs are expected to disseminate all information related to the proposal process among domestic stakeholders – particularly NGOs – that are actively working on the diseases. The Guidelines state that the information to be disseminated should include:

• the timelines relevant to the Global Fund’s Call for Proposals;
• how NGOs and other interested stakeholders can tender to the CCM a submission to be considered for inclusion in the CCM’s proposal to the Global Fund; and
• the criteria upon which such submissions will be evaluated by the CCM.

The Guidelines also state that the proposal development process should allow all stakeholders enough time to provide input into the drafting of the proposal that the CCM will submit to the Fund.

Once the Round 6 Proposal Form is released by the Fund, CCMs will only have until the start of August to prepare their proposals. They will need most of that time just to fill our the Proposal Form, have it reviewed, and obtain all of the necessary signatures. Therefore, if they have not yet designed the projects that will form the basis of their proposal, or have not completed some of the other activities discussed above, they should start doing so urgently. The one thing that all applicants to the Fund have in common is insufficient time to do as thorough a job as they would like.