[The following is an excerpt from "The Aidspan Guide to Round 5 Applications to the Global Fund", available at www.aidspan.org/guides.]

The Global Fund prefers that all applications come from CCMs, and strongly discourages applications from NGOs. One of the reasons for this is that the Global Fund wants to promote partnerships among the stakeholders. Another reason is that the Fund does not want to be swamped with multiple applications from one country, with objectives pointing in different directions.

The Round 5 Guidelines for Proposals state that organizations from countries in which a CCM does not exist may apply directly, but must provide evidence that the proposal is consistent with and complements national policies and strategies.

For countries where there is a CCM, the Guidelines state that proposals from organizations other than CCMs are not eligible

unless they satisfactorily explain that they originate from one of the following:

• countries without legitimate governments (such as governments not recognized by the United Nations);
• countries in conflict, facing natural disasters, or in complex emergency situations; or
• countries that suppress or have not established partnerships with civil society and NGOs.

The Guidelines state that a non-CCM proposal must demonstrate clearly why it could not be considered under the CCM process, and provide documentation of these reasons. The Guidelines further state that if a non-CCM proposal was provided to a CCM for its consideration, but the CCM either did not review it in a timely fashion or refused to endorse it, the steps taken to obtain CCM approval should be described; and arguments in support of the CCM endorsement, as well as documentary evidence of the attempts to obtain CCM approval, should be provided.

In the first four rounds of funding, proposals from NGOs have been funded only in very limited circumstances.

In Rounds 3 and 4, the Global Fund approved proposals from NGOs in Somalia and Côte d'Ivoire, two war-torn countries. In Round 3, the Fund approved a proposal from an NGO in Russia where, at the time, there was no CCM in existence. In Round 2, two proposals were approved from NGOs in Madagascar where, again, there was no CCM in existence. However, because a CCM was being formed in Madagascar at the time the proposals were submitted, the Global Fund stipulated in its grant agreements for these projects that once the CCM was formed, the CCM must oversee the implementation of the projects.

There has only been one instance of a proposal from an NGO being funded outside the circumstances described above. It was a proposal to provide prevention services to injection drug users in Thailand, and it was funded in Round 3. Several factors made this situation unique:

• The government was not funding prevention activities targeting injection drug users.
• A military and police crackdown on drug traffickers and individual drug users was underway.
• The NGO submitting the proposal said that it had been informed that some members of the CCM would not support any proposal that included prevention programs for injection drug users.

These were the only proposals from NGOs approved in Rounds 2-4. In Round 1, when many CCMs were still being formed, the Global Fund approved four proposals from NGOs.

The bottom line for Round 5 is that NGOs are best advised to work through the CCM. Exactly how NGOs become involved in the applications process will depend on the process that the CCM uses to prepare proposals. It may also depend on the degree of satisfaction that NGOs have with this process. If NGOs are unhappy with the process, one option they might consider is to prepare a proposal and then attempt to get the CCM to adopt it as its own proposal.