Board Games Begin – Debates, consensus, conscientious objections, challenges, strategies, decisions?

Author:

Madhuri Kamat

Article Number: 1

The Global Fund Board met for the 51st time and there were three days of presentations and discussions on the issues of concern to the stakeholders who gathered to hear about its achievements and plans as the Global Fund sought directions from the Board on the way ahead. We cover the reports that were sent for the Board’s reading and the questions to which they sought answers. Did they get them? Read all about it here.

After scoring one more than a half century, the Global Fund Board’s April meet is done and dusted. Presided over by Rapporteur Susan Mochache from the Eastern and Southern Africa constituency, the Board approved of the following:

Okay, so those were the decision points that were marked as such among the listed Agenda items.

Beyond all the decisiveness, there were discussions, points and counter-points, side events such as the release of the RISE study on Country Coordinating Mechanisms (which we’d featured earlier); gripes about the lack of time given to look at the revised policies like that for procurement, lack of engagement with civil society and communities and political engagement with human rights and gender equality. Then there were also debates and negotiations, hard and long over alphabet soups like PFM (Public Financial Management) and 3Ones (of plan, budget and report), GDS (Global Disease Split) in the Allocation Methodology, and non-alphabet (till now) agendas like Lusaka; and Global Fund, Gavi and the Global Financing Facility (how come the partnership isn’t known as 3G?, #just asking), and all things strategic, from 2023, till 2028.

And in between all of that, there were highlights of achievements, by the Global Fund’s Executive Director and the Office of the Inspector General. And ever present was the pressure of resource mobilization in the context of the ticking timeline towards the Eighth Replenishment of the Global Fund and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 2030 as challenges loom…..

REPLENISHMENT IN THE SHADOW OF…….

More haste, less speed; more collaboration less jostling for main lead; more strengthening less prescriptive; more expertise less siloing; more human rights less restrictive policies, more country ownership less barriers for access ….that’s the message that comes to the Global Fund and to other global health institutions as well. Are they listening? We’ll keep you updated on that in the issues to come….

And any thoughts about which aspect in the global health initiative sector you’d like to see covered in our newsletter are always welcome and we’d really appreciate suggestions on who can pen an article on it! Anyone who wishes to voluntarily contribute as a guest columnist and provide an incisive analysis or first-person account of what is happening at micro or macro levels in the field of global health interventions is also welcome. Any feedback and suggestions in French, Spanish, English can be sent to Ida Hakizinka ida.hakizinka@aidspan.org and/or in English to madhuri@aidspan.org

If you like what you read, do spread the word around and ask others to subscribe!