GLOBAL FUND RELEASES PRELIMINARY INFORMATION ON SCREENING OF ROUND 8 PROPOSALS

Author:

Bernard Rivers

Article Type:

Article Number: 3

ABSTRACT Every single CCM that submitted a Round 8 Global Fund proposal was deemed by the Fund to be sufficiently in compliance with the Fund's "six minimum requirements for CCMs" that its proposal was forwarded to the TRP for consideration.

Every single CCM that submitted a Round 8 Global Fund proposal was deemed by the Fund to be sufficiently in compliance with the Fund’s “six minimum requirements for CCMs” that its proposal was forwarded to the TRP for consideration.

This is revealed in the “Report of the Technical Review Panel and the Secretariat on Round 8 Proposals,” described in the previous article.

The Fund’s screening process involves evaluating applicants against a number of eligibility criteria. The criteria vary by type of applicant. Some of them have to do with the income level of the country and whether vulnerable populations were addressed in the proposal. But most of the criteria relate to whether CCM, Sub-CCM and RCM applicants met the six minimum requirements established for coordinating mechanisms. These minimum requirements include ensuring that the representatives from the non-government sectors sitting on the CCM are selected through a transparent process run by the sectors themselves; ensuring that a broad range of stakeholders participate in the proposal development and grant oversight processes; and implementing a transparent process for the identification of PRs.

The Global Fund Secretariat’s Screening Review Panel reviewed 125 applicants, of which 98 (78 percent) were screened in (i.e., deemed to be eligible for their proposal to be considered by the TRP). The breakdown was as follows:

 

 

Thus, all 88 CCMs that submitted proposals were screened in. For Rounds 6 and 7, respectively, 93 (of 96) and 77 (of 80) CCMs were screened in. Proposals from applicants that were “screened out” were not even seen by the TRP, however technically sound they might have been. Conversely, of course, proposals from applicants that were screened in were not necessarily recommended by the TRP for approval by the Board.

The Secretariat said that, “increasingly, country context is an important aspect in the Screening Review Panel’s determination of whether an applicant is determined as having met the minimum standard of eligibility.”

The Secretariat said that during the screening process, clarifications were required of a large number of applicants. (This was also the case for Round 7.) The two most common areas where clarifications were required were (a) the process for identifying PRs; and (b) the process of obtaining input from stakeholders on the content of the proposal.

In Round 8, the Global Fund strongly encouraged applicants to nominate at least one PR from the government sector and at least one PR from the non-government sectors for each disease component in their proposal (this is known as “dual-track financing”). In the report, the Secretariat said that “in a limited number of instances, the CCM’s decision to continue the role of a ‘well performing’ incumbent Principal Recipient was given as the reason for not implementing dual track financing.” In these instances, the Secretariat said, no selection criteria were provided, meaning that the process for the identification of the PR was not explained. (The Global Fund requires that the process be explained on the proposal form to enable the Fund to determine if the coordinating mechanism meets the minimum CCM requirement concerning the identification of PRs). In the report, the Secretariat reminded applicants (“and partners working with them”) that for all PRs, “selections must be merit based, whether selecting between differing entities in the same sector, or across sectors.”

Once again, in Round 8 the Secretariat screened out the vast majority (21 out of 23) of the Non-CCM applicants. In Round 7, 18 of the 21 Non-CCM applicants were screened out.

However, the fact that only three of the eight ROs (Regional Organisations) applicants were screened in is a departure from the experience of the last two funding rounds. In Rounds 7 and 6 respectively, five (of five) and nine (of 10) applications or the RO applicants were screened in.

According to the report, the CCM Team in the Global Fund Secretariat will later release a more detailed report on the work and outcomes of the Screening Review Panel for Round 8.

Language of proposals

In the report, the Secretariat noted that for Round 8, there was an increase in the number of proposals submitted in a language other than English (mostly French and Spanish).

The Secretariat said that there were a number of proposals received from applicants in English, even in cases where Spanish or French is the dominant language in the applicant’s country. The Secretariat said that in a very limited number of these cases, the TRP observed that the quality of the English was poor. In the report, the Secretariat encouraged such applicants to submit proposals in the United Nations language that they are “most commonly working in, rather than English.”