New Funding for Malaria Grant in Cote d’Ivoire Will Be Used for Mass Distribution of Bed Nets

Author:

David Garmaise

Article Type:

Article Number: 7

CSOs were pleased with the country dialogue

ABSTRACT Cote d’Ivoire plans to use the $57.7 million in interim applicant funding for a malaria grant to move closer to universal coverage of bed nets.

Most of the $57.7 million in interim applicant funding for a malaria grant to Cote d’Ivoire (see GFO article) will be used to procure upwards of than 12 million long-lasting insecticide-treated nets (LLINs). This represents almost 86% of the total amount required to achieve and maintain universal coverage across the entire population of Cote d’Ivoire.

The money will be added to existing grant CIV-809-G09-M (principal recipient: National Programme for Malaria Control), which is currently in Phase 2 and is scheduled to run until December 2014. A mass campaign planned for 2014 will allow for the replacement of the LLINs distributed in 2011 under this grant.

According to the Grant Approvals Committee (GAC), in preparation for the proposal to the Global Fund, a country dialogue was conducted involving the Ministry of Health, key malaria partners in Cote d’Ivoire and the Global Fund Secretariat. A representative of the national coalition of civil society organisations (CSOs) told GFO that this was the first time everyone, especially CSOs, felt that their needs and inputs were considered in the development of a proposal for the Global Fund.

When it reviewed the proposal, the Technical Review Panel (TRP) said that the proposed activities constituted a significant scale-up of existing efforts and a critical step in the fight against malaria in Cote d’Ivoire. The TRP praised efforts to maximise value for money. It cited two examples: (1) the cost per net delivered ($4.54), which is lower than the going rate in the region; and (2) the plan for disposing of bed net shipment containers by converting them into clinic offices in rural areas.

The TRP recommended that with respect to the LLIN campaign, the country coordinating mechanism (CCM) evaluate the impact and lessons learned from past trainings to better inform the current phase. The TRP also recommended that a critical assessment and monitoring of the operational feasibility of the LLIN campaign be undertaken and that, if necessary, a phased implementation approach be adopted. These issues will be addressed in final grant-making prior to the signing of the revised grant agreement.

The $57.7 million requested by the CCM was $11 million less than the amount allocated to Cote d’Ivoire when the new funding model was launched. According to the GAC, the country team for Cote d’Ivoire in the Secretariat explained that the country wanted to prioritise the mass LLIN campaign and to defer any request for the additional funding until after the performance of the malaria programme is formally reviewed and the National Malaria Strategic Plan is updated in 2014.

Information for this article was taken from Board Decision GF-B29-EDP8 and from GF-B29-ER5, the Report of Secretariat Funding Recommendations. These documents are not available on the Global Fund website. Our regional correspondent for West and Central Africa, Bertrand Kampoer, contributed to this article.