Letter from Board Leadership Sets Out Priorities for the Next Two Years

Author:

David Garmaise

Article Number: 3

ABSTRACT Nafsiah Mboi, the new Chair, and Mireille Guigaz, the new Vice-Chair, have sent a letter to Global Fund Board members outlining where they believe the Board should focus its energy over the next two years.

One of the priorities of the new Chair and Vice-Chair of the Global Fund Board (“Board leadership”) is to assist implementing country delegations to be more fully engaged in strategic decisions taken by the Fund, “including those that have immediate impact at the country level.”

This was one of the messages in a letter that Chair Nafsiah Mboi and Vice-Chair Mireille Guigaz sent to Board members outlining the areas where they believe the Board should focus for the next two years.

The Board leadership said that the Board can learn from the capacity-building process recently undertaken by its two African constituencies.

The leadership said that continuous improvement in the management of human resources is crucial. “By focusing more on ethics, corporate values, clarification of our position vis-à-vis our organizational risk appetite, systematic personal and global quantitative and qualitative assessment, training and career prospects, we can achieve high levels of satisfaction and excellence in our human resources.”

With respect to how the Global Fund manages its overall resources, the Board leadership said that the priority for the rest of 2013 is to complete the design of the new funding model so that it can be fully rolled out in 2014. In 2014, they said, the Board will need to focus more of its attention on its fiscal strategies and practices, “to ensure that resources are managed by the Fund as effectively and efficiently as possible.” The leadership said that a discussion will be launched at the first Board meeting of 2014 on the way the Global Fund manages its own assets (at the World Bank).

The Board leadership said that at its meeting in Sri Lanka in June, the Board affirmed the need to maintain the focus on holding the Global Fund accountable for the achievement of measurable targets and standards. The Board will be asked to approve new key performance indicators (KPIs) at its November 2013 meeting. The leadership said that progress against these KPIs will be an important part of the Executive Director’s annual performance assessment. In addition, some of the KPIs will be relevant to the annual performance assessment of the Inspector General.

The Board leadership said that the Global Fund’s current risk management framework will be revised by February 2014. The leadership is recommending that the Board place a risk oversight discussion on its annual Board calendar, “so that we are collectively discussing risk tolerances, their determination, and appropriate responses more routinely than in the past.”

The Board leadership said that in 2014 the Board will be asked to continue the conversation on evolving the Partnership Forum mechanism. “Used well and with value for money principles also in mind, the mechanism presents a powerful opportunity for us to keep the Global Fund focused on being a true partnership,” they said.

The leadership said that it would like to ensure that the Board achieves more effective coordination of key cross-cutting issues such as assessing performance against the KPIs and overseeing risk management.

Another priority for the Board, the leadership said, is the mid-term review of progress related to the Fund’s 2012–2016 Strategy. The review will start in 2014.

The letter from the Board leadership included a section on principles, in which the leadership said that the Board should adhere to the path created by the previous Board “without changing models even before their implementation.”