THIRTEEN REGIONAL CONCEPT NOTES HAVE PROGRESSED TO THE GRANT-MAKING STAGE

Author:

David Garmaise

Article Number: 1

Funding approval likely to follow

ABSTRACT Thirteen of the 15 regional concept notes submitted to the Global Fund have completed the review by the Technical Review Panel and the first of two reviews by the Grant Approvals Committee. They are now in the grant-making stage. Funding approval will likely follow in the coming weeks or months.

Thirteen regional concept notes were approved to move to the grant-making stage, the Secretariat has informed Aidspan. That means that they have been reviewed by the Technical Review Panel and have completed the first of two reviews by the Grant Approvals Committee. It also means that the concept notes are almost certain to be funded.

Once grant-making is completed, the GAC conducts a final review of the grants emanating from the concept notes and then recommends to the Global Fund Board how much funding should be approved.

Two grants are expected to be recommended for funding in September. This means that these grants have completed or almost completed the grant-making stage.

A total of $120 million was set aside for this wave of regional concept notes. Another $80 million will be available for the second wave in 2016.

The TRP reviewed 15 concept notes in the first wave. Two were not recommended to proceed to grant-making. The applicants involved have submitted new expressions of interest for these initiatives for the second wave.

(Regional proposals follow a two-step process. Applicants first submit an expression of interest. Then, a portion of these applicants are invited to submit a concept note.)

Of the 13 concept notes that progressed to grant-making, eight are from Africa, two from Eastern Europe and Central Asia, two from Latin America and the Caribbean, and one from Asia. In terms of components, nine concept notes were for HIV, three for TB and one for malaria. See the table for details.

Table: Regional concept notes approved to proceed to grant-making

Although the Secretariat has released the names of the applicants whose concept notes have moved to the grant-making stage, it has not provided summaries of the programs that the applicants are proposing to implement. Aidspan has the applicants themselves for summaries; in the near future, GFO will publish the summaries that we receive.

Once the grants are considered disbursement-ready and approved by the Board, the concept notes and documents related to the signing of the grants are expected to be posted on the Global Fund website.

TRP comments

In a report on lessons learned from its review of the regional expressions of interest and concept notes in 2015, the TRP identified some strengths and weaknesses. It said that the stronger notes included new activities beyond the “business as usual” approach of training and workshops, and that they presented strong evidence to support the activities they were proposing. Weaker concept notes, on the other hand, failed to demonstrate an understanding of challenges or present a roadmap on how they could achieve desired outcomes.

The TRP said that strong concept notes identified new programming areas not usually covered by national programs, while weaker notes failed to articulate how a regional approach would effectively achieve change.

The TRP recommended that future applicants explain how the proposed activities will eventually be integrated into national programs. “This is especially critical for … programs proposing to bridge implementation gaps not effectively covered by national programs, for example, reaching under-served populations (including migrants, transport corridor, or cross-border populations) with services that should otherwise be within the scope of respective national strategies and national health systems,” the TRP said.

The TRP made a number of additional observations. The report should be available shortly on the Global Fund website here; look for “Regional Applications Lessons Learned 2015.”

Thirty-five expressions of interest for the second tranche were submitted earlier this year. The GAC will decide at its next meeting in mid-September how many applicants will be invited to submit concept notes. Funding for the second tranche will be awarded after the concept notes and grants are reviewed in 2016.