ROUND THREE RESULTS DUE MID-OCTOBER

Author:

Bernard Rivers

Article Type:

Article Number: 2

ABSTRACT The Technical Review Panel (TRP) has completed its evaluation of the Round Three proposals, and has sent its recommendations to the board, which will make its decisions October 15-17. Under certain circumstances, the anticipated cash-shortage problem may not arise.

The Technical Review Panel (TRP) has completed its evaluation of the Round Three proposals, and has sent its recommendations to the board. The board will make its decisions at its October 15-17 meeting in Chiang Mai, Thailand. (During the weekend of October 18-19, results will be emailed to all subscribers in the next issue of GFO, and will also be posted at the web site of Aidspan (www.aidspan.org), publisher of GFO. The Fund is also expected to post the results at its own site, www.globalfundatm.org.)

The TRP is composed of 26 technical experts from 19 countries. The members operate in their personal capacities, not taking into consideration the views or desires of their domestic governments or their employers. In Rounds 1 and 2 the board approved all the proposals that were recommended by the TRP, and no others. This approach makes the situation much less political than would be the case if the board went through the recommendations one by one, discussing how each board member felt about each proposal or about the country from which it came. This de-politicized approach has impressed many observers of the Fund.

Once the board has decided that a proposal is approved, the CCM or other organization that submitted it will be sent the TRP’s comments. These comments will list the strengths and weaknesses of the proposal, and will list some questions that the TRP has about the proposal. Each applicant will be asked to answer those questions within a few weeks. Once the TRP accepts these answers, the Fund’s Secretariat will start negotiating a grant agreement with the applicant. This can be a fairly lengthy process, because the agreement will need to specify a number of details regarding which organization will be the Principal Recipient, who will be the Sub Recipients, which tasks and likely results will be achieved by which dates, etc. Much of this will already have been specified in the original proposal, but usually additional details will need to be agreed in writing before the money can start to flow. Proposals approved in Round 3 should mostly be receiving their first money by mid-2004.