BOARD APPROVES NEW TARGETS FOR THE 2017-2022 STRATEGIC KPI FRAMEWORK

Author:

Mary Lloyd

Article Number: 4

Interim targets agreed for two KPIs, and the setting of three targets delayed until the final Board meeting of this year

ABSTRACT The Board has approved the vast majority of the KPI targets it asked to be reviewed at the last Board meeting, after months of deliberations among various groups within the Global Fund. Of the original 37 targets, 29 have been approved, five have been revised, and the approval of three has been delayed.

After a months-long review process involving a number of bodies within the Global Fund, the Board has approved 29 of the 37 targets it declined to accept at its last meeting, revising just five targets, and postponing approval of three targets until later this year. The decision was taken on 20 March by electronic vote.

See the table at the end of this article for a summary of the 2017-2022 KPI targets.

Agreement on the targets comes after the Board failed to approve the proposed targets at its meeting last November. At the time, several Board members were worried about some of the assumptions used to calculate the targets, and about whether they were sufficiently ambitious. Board members were also concerned that country level projections used to calculate some of the targets were not clear enough.

As a result, the Board asked its constituencies to provide further feedback on the targets, and requested that the Audit and Finance Committee and the Strategy Committee take charge of various targets according to their respective responsibilities. It also asked for a joint-committee Advisory Group to be set up to offer revised targets to the committees for recommendation to the Board.

The Advisory Group was made up of four people representing implementers, four from donor constituencies, and two from partners. Their aim was to review whether the targets were ambitious enough, without being unrealistic.

To achieve this, the group held a number of discussions from December 2016 to February 2017, including with the modelers who had been hired to help develop the targets and with relevant Secretariat staff.

The three targets that have been delayed are part of KPI 6 (strengthen systems for health) – specifically KPI 6a (procurement), 6b (supply chains) and 6e (ability to report on disaggregated results).

Two of the targets have been approved on an interim basis – i.e. the targets for KPI 5 (service coverage for key populations) and KPI 9c (human rights: key populations and human rights in transition countries). The Advisory Group noted that KPI 5 needed an interim target because the first three years of the 2017-2022 Strategy focus on reporting capacity, and after that its focus changes to service delivery coverage. KPI 9c was assigned an interim target until the end of 2019 because there is little data available on domestic investments in programs targeting key populations and human rights barriers to access.

The targets that were revised from what was originally presented to the Board were for KPI 2 (performance against service delivery targets); KPI 4 (investment efficiency); KPI 7a (allocation utilization); KPI 8 (gender and age equality) and KPI 11 (domestic investments).

KPI 2 has 17 targets, but only one was changed. Instead of aiming for 85% of people with HIV known to be on treatment 12 months after they start antiretroviral treatment, the Fund will now target 90% to better align it with other targets.

The targets for KPI 4, KPI 7a and KPI 11 were only adjusted slightly, but  the one for KPI 8 (gender and age equality), which aims to measure progress towards reducing gender and age disparities in health, was altered significantly. It had been set at achieving a 45% reduction in HIV incidence in women aged 15-24. The Board has agreed to increase that to 58% now, and to reset it again in 2018, after more advanced models accounting for age and sex differences are put in place.