MAIN DECISIONS MADE AT GLOBAL FUND BOARD MEETING

Author:

Bernard Rivers

Article Type:

Article Number: 2

ABSTRACT The board made a number of decisions at its just-completed board meeting, none of vast significance but all important to the ongoing work of the Fund.

Key decisions made by the Global Fund board at the meeting that ended on Friday were as follows:

• Round 5 grants were approved, as described elsewhere in this issue of GFO.
• The Ethics Committee, working with the forthcoming Office of the Inspector General, will make proposals to the December 2005 board meeting on the implementation of a whistleblowing policy (which enables people to report, anonymously if necessary, inappropriate activities within the Fund or grant recipients).
• The Ethics Committee will make recommendations to the April 2006 board meeting on how to deal with what many board members have felt was inappropriate amounts of lobbying of board members regarding possible “No Go” Phase 2 funding decisions.
• The Policy and Strategy Committee will report to the December 2005 board meeting on its progress thus far in developing a proposed future strategy for the Fund.
  • The Portfolio Committee will make proposals to the April 2006 board meeting on:
  • How to “improve NGO access to the Global Fund resources in Round 6.”
  • Revising the Proposal Form and Guidelines for Proposals for future Rounds.
  • Improving the process for screening out and clarifying proposals prior to submission to the TRP.
• Improving guidelines in future Rounds for proposals dealing with Health Systems Strengthening.
• The Board seat formerly shared by Canada, Germany, Switzerland, UK and Australia was divided into two seats, one for Canada, Germany and Switzerland, and one for UK and Australia. This evens up the imbalance that was created when the Communities Living with the Three Diseases were given a voting board seat. There are now ten seats for the “donor group” (eight for governments, plus one each for private sector and foundations), ten seats for the “recipient group” (seven for governments, plus one each for NGOs from developed and developing countries and one for communities living with the diseases), plus four non-voting seats, mostly for UN agencies.
• During the “Phase 2 renewal” process, if the Secretariat believes that a grant should not be renewed, the CCM will now be given a chance to comment before the Secretariat makes its recommendation to the board. Then, if the Secretariat twice states that the renewal should be made a “No Go” and the board twice disagrees by email, an independent panel shall be asked to review the situation before the Board makes a final decision at a board meeting. The panel will not make a recommendation; it will merely review and describe the areas in which the Secretariat and the Board have disagreed.
• Agreement was reached on a person who will be offered the position of Inspector General of the Global Fund. The Office of Inspector General will operate as an independent unit, reporting directly to the Board. Its primary purpose will be to provide independent and objective oversight to ensure the integrity and effectiveness of the Fund’s programs and operations. This will involve oversight not just of the Secretariat, but also of grant recipients.
• The Fund will hold its second Partnership Forum before July 2006. A Steering Committee will be established to propose plans for the event, and subsequently to evaluate the effectiveness of the Forum.
• The Fund will continue to examine the possibility of ending the arrangement whereby WHO provides many administrative services for the Fund, but no decision will be made before the April 2006 board meeting.
• The Fund will continue the South Africa ‘loveLife” grant (which the Secretariat had recommended be terminated at the end of Phase 1), but only if (a) the South Africa CCM proposes within one month appropriate ways to address various specific concerns raised by the Fund, and (b) the TRP then agrees that the CCM’s proposed modifications make the grant worth continuing, and (c) the Board then agrees at its December meeting to continue the grant.
• The Fund will continue two HIV grants (one to Senegal, the other to Honduras) that the Secretariat had recommended be terminated at the end of Phase 1, but only under certain specific conditions.

The precise wording of the board decisions is available at www.theglobalfund.org/en/about/board/eleventh, as is the background documentation.