---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 10:44:24 -0500 From: Africa Action <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Africa: Global Health Fund Updates Africa: Global Health Fund Updates Date distributed (ymd): 020316 Document reposted by Africa Action Africa Policy Electronic Distribution List: an information service provided by AFRICA ACTION (incorporating the Africa Policy Information Center, The Africa Fund, and the American Committee on Africa). Find more information for action for Africa at http://www.africaaction.org +++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++ Region: Continent-Wide Issue Areas: +health+ +economy/development+ SUMMARY CONTENTS: This posting contains several documents from the Break the Silence listserv [contact information below], as the first round of proposals to the Global Fund for AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis are being considered. The Wall Street Journal reported on March 6 that about 50 countries are expected to submit grant proposals, while fund officials acknowledge that the funds are likely to be insufficient. Of the total $2 billion pledged to date, only about $700 million is expected to be available this year, far short of the estimated $10 billion a year estimated to be needed. [Note: The list of pledges can be found at: http://www.un.org/News/ossg/aids.htm The link on the Global Fund's own website to the list of pledges is currently not working. There is as yet no public data available by country on which pledges are to be paid this year.] +++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ BREAK THE SILENCE - The international forum on health and development policy issues To join email: [log in to unmask] To post email: [log in to unmask] For info: [log in to unmask] Coordinated by Health & Development Networks (HDN) BTS discussion archives are available through http://www.hdnet.org/home2.htm or directly at: http://archives.healthdev.net/bts ******************************************************** Global Fund Names Technical Review Panel to Review Funding Proposals Global Fund Press Release GENEVA, March 11, 2002 Contacts: Melanie Zipperer at +41 22 791 9456 (office) or +41 79 477 1722 (mobile), or Leyla Alyanak at +41 22 791 9455 (office). Further information on the Global Fund can be found at http://www.globalfundatm.org First Grant Awards to be Announced in April The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a new initiative to combat the epidemics that kill six million people each year, today announced the appointment of an international panel of experts that will review all grant proposals and make recommendations to the Board for funding. The 17-member Technical Review Panel includes experts in disease control and prevention, clinical care, health education, and international development. All members of the panel have worked in the developing world, where the HIV/AIDS, TB, and malaria epidemics have the greatest impact. The Technical Review Panel will meet in Geneva from 25 March to 5 April to review the first round of funding proposals. The Board will make final funding decisions, and will announce the first grant awards at the conclusion of its next meeting, scheduled for 22-24 April in New York. "This panel of experts will help the Global Fund to identify projects that will have clear and demonstrable impact in the fight against AIDS, TB, and malaria," said Dr. Chrispus Kiyonga, the Fund's Board Chair, who announced the appointments today. "We are very pleased that the Fund will be guided by some of the world's leading public health authorities, who bring with them invaluable technical knowledge and extensive field experience." Technical Review Panel members were selected from a group of almost 700 nominees from around the world. Members of the panel were drawn from government and non-governmental organizations, the developed and developing worlds, and the public and private sectors. Panel members will serve in their personal capacities as experts in their fields, not as representatives of their institutions or governments. Appointees to the Technical Review Panel include: Jonathan Broomberg, South Africa Alex Godwin Coutinho, Uganda Usa Duongsaa, Thailand Paula Fujiwara, USA Sarah Julia Gordon, Guyana Ranieri Guerra, Italy Michel Kazatchkine, France Peter Kazembe, Malawi Mary Ann Lansang, Philippines Fabio Luelmo, Argentina Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, Poland Jane Elizabeth Miller, UK Toru Mori, Japan Peter Sandiford, New Zealand Amadou Sy Elhadj, Senegal Valdilea Veloso Dos Santos, Brazil Kong-Lai Zhang, China About the Global Fund AIDS, TB and malaria have a devastating global impact, causing nearly six million deaths a year - 10% of the world's total. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria is an independent public-private partnership working to increase global resources to combat the three diseases, to direct these resources where they are needed most, and to ensure that they are used effectively. The Fund was created to share resources and expertise across national boundaries and private and public sectors in order to make an ongoing and significant contribution to the goal of reducing infections, illness, and death. The Fund will disburse between $700-$800 million in 2002, effectively increasing global spending on these epidemics by 50%. ******************************************* March 13, 2002 Preparations for the GFATM's Next Deadline Josh Ruxin Proposals from dozens of countries poured into the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria this weekend to meet the March 10 deadline. In the days leading up to the deadline, many countries altered the amounts requested based on donor pressure and based on the emerging understanding that insufficient funds would be available for the proposals presented. In other words, we had pre-proposal rationing. This must change immediately. In order to make the case that increased level of funds are needed, the GFATM must receive proposals in excess of funds available and which are of a high quality, demonstrate capacity for implementation, and are built around transparent processes. The Access Project for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has already helped a half dozen countries in their proposal preparations. Many others are doing the same. In order to ensure coordination of our efforts and complete transparency in the process, we propose the following: 1) All proposals to the GFATM should circulate freely on-line, so that all can help to ensure transparency in the next steps of the process. The Global Fund itself should post all of the proposals on its own website, and we should insist upon that as a matter of transparency and good governance. In the meantime, we shall post all proposals received with CCM approval on our web site: http://www.cid.harvard.edu/gf/. [Note: As of March 16, proposals from Malawi and Nigeria have been posted on the site] Please encourage countries with which you work to pass along their proposals. Here are the reasons doing so is in their interest: * It provides all countries with knowledge of what shape proposals may take, and what level of detail is required * It provides a place where the world can see the proposals that are being submitted and why funds must be increased in order to support these initiatives * It provides a distribution mechanism for NGOs and others in-country who would like to see what their CCM has submitted 2) The GFATM should ensure the world that proposals will be judged on their merits, not according to artificial (and undisclosed) dollar limits dreamt up by donors. Many proposal writers were told of an undisclosed rule that countries would receive no more than $2 per capita in grants. If this informal rule was indeed established, it must be repudiated. If it was not established, it must be denied forthrightly. 3) The technical review committee [panel] should be allowed to operate without political interference. It should be instructed to judge proposals on their scientific and public health merits and feasibility, not according to any rule of size of grants per country. 4) The recommendations of the technical review committee should be posted on the GFATM website regarding all proposals received. 5) The decisions of the GFATM in all cases should be posted on the website. 6) The next round of grant applications should be announced before the end of March, and should call for applications no later than August 1. Country teams should begin to organize their second-round proposals as soon as possible. With a deadline of August 1, there will be scope at the country level for scaling up bolder and more comprehensive proposals than were submitted in the first round. The second-round funding requests will therefore be considerably larger than in the first round. The Access Project for the GFATM is based at the Center for International Development at Harvard University and will assist in this monitoring process and in 2nd round proposal preparation. Please contact Dr. Josh Ruxin ([log in to unmask], 617-496-0737). Josh Ruxin Project Director The Access Project for The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Center for International Development Harvard University 79 John F. Kennedy Street Cambridge, MA 02138 Phone (617)496-0737 Fax (617)496-6555 [log in to unmask] - - - - Access Project goals (from http://www.cid.harvard.edu/gf): Goals The Access Project for the Global Fund has no official ties to the Global Fund but does coordinate its activities with a range of organizations and agencies that are interested in the Global Fund's success. The Access Project has the following goals: * To help countries, NGOs, and other groups prepare the best possible proposals informed by insight from teams of experts from Harvard and other institutions * To ensure that lessons learned from the proposal process are disseminated to all parties interested in pursuing financing from the Global Fund * To make use of the internet in pursuing these goals In order to accomplish these goals, the Access Project works with several groups at Harvard that specialize in AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. For AIDS-related issues, the main groups are led by Dr. Bruce Walker from the Partners AIDS Research Center at Mass General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and by Drs. Max Essex and Ric Marlink from the Harvard AIDS Institute. For malaria the team is led by Dr. Andrew Spielman at the Harvard School of Public Health. For tuberculosis, the Access Project collaborates with Drs. Paul Farmer, Jim Kim, and Serena Koenig from Harvard Medical School and Partners in Health. Dr. Josh Ruxin heads a team with representatives from all of these groups. - - - - - Moderator's note: Josh's message above also reminds us of some of the recommendations made by NGOs during the GFATM Consultation meeting held in Brussels in November last year: - Reports on implementation of funded programs should be signed off by all partners, including NGOs and civil society partners. - In order to ensure maximum transparency in GFATM activities, all fund proposals, interim and final reports, as well as other supporting/review documentation, and working documents of the GFATM Board, Secretariat and Global Partnership Forum should be available publicly and for comment in a timely way. - Current proposals should be posted and open for comment on the internet. The comments should be made available to the Technical Review Panel (TRP) within the established proposal review time frame. This is to ensure transparency, to allow sharing of ideas between countries and to contribute to capacity building. It is in keeping in with the environmental impact assessment precedent requiring public hearings. - In some countries there may not be sufficient capacity to effectively apply for funds and this will need technical and financial support in order to prepare and submit a Fund proposal. The Fund should provide for this type of support and related capacity-building. Taken from: Key Recommendations from the NGO Consultation Meeting (Brussels 12 - 13 November 2001) - section focusing on Accountability & Eligibility] *********************************************************** Posted by [log in to unmask] (Gorik) Dear all, Should we not be fighting for more money in the Global Fund, rather than hoping that our proposal is better than those written by our neighbors? On Friday, March 8, 2002, Mozambique sent its proposal to the Global Fund. It was the result of 6 weeks of hard work, all major stakeholders participating as much as they could in a sometimes confusing - because of lack of time to plan meetings and send out invitations - process. We did have one advantage. Since the International AIDS Conference in Durban, 2000, both Ministry of Health and National AIDS Council are systematically discussing all possible interventions to combat HIV/AIDS in workgroups and meetings that are open to all the stakeholders. So we already knew what had to be done - in the field of HIV/AIDS - when the Global Fund sent out its call for proposals. We still needed to define who was going to do it, when and where first; enough questions to keep us busy. We also had one enormous disadvantage. Mozambique being one of the poorest countries in the world, its institutions are dramatically under-funded. And institutional capacity is what you need to make a good plan look good on paper. We fear the competition of other countries that can easily line up a battalion of experts in writing proposals. But we count on the wisdom of the Global Fund Technical Review Panel to look behind appearances. We fear the competition of other countries. One thing we have experienced during this process is that the $700 million currently available represent nothing more than a fig leaf. A fig leaf that must cover what is really going on in this region: a combination of epidemics that kill more people than a full battery of atomic bombs could. AIDS, TB and Malaria. each of them kills more than atomic bombs. There is no flashlight, no mushroom in the sky, only graveyards getting fuller by the day. They are silent atomic bombs. And the world sends us a fig leaf. At the end of the process, we compared our budgets with those mentioned in the famous Schwartlander et al. article ("Resource Needs for HIV/AIDS", Schwartlander et al., Science Express, June 21, 2001.) It seems that we are going to do it just a little bit cheaper. Therefore, we can assume that the projected $9.2 billion for HIV/AIDS and $1.3 to 2.6 billion for TB and Malaria are valid. And thus that the $10 billion requested by the Global Fund are reasonable, if not under-estimated. So why are we waiting for April 25 to find out what we already know: that there are not enough funds available? Shouldn't we, members of Country Coordination Mechanisms (CCM) from all over the world join our hands and voices and demand more funds right away, before March 25, before the Technical Review Panel starts its impossible job to choose between proposals that are all of vital importance? The International AIDS Conference in Barcelona, later this year, should have a specific workgroup to transform the actual Global Fund, depending on the instable generosity of donor countries, into a fund that can count on $10 billion per year, constituted by automatic contributions of all UN member states, according to their gross domestic product. But before Barcelona 2002, we can already voice our main concern: more money is needed. Send it to the Global Fund and to Break The Silence, they will know how to use it: [log in to unmask] and [log in to unmask] And do send a copy to all your friends who care, ask them to join. Send it on behalf of your CCM, send it as a member of a CCM. or just send it as an organization or individual - who cares. Just write one simple line: THE GLOBAL FUND NEEDS MORE FUNDS, or elaborate, if you can. It will make a difference! ************************************************************ This material is being reposted for wider distribution by Africa Action (incorporating the Africa Policy Information Center, The Africa Fund, and the American Committee on Africa). Africa Action's information services provide accessible information and analysis in order to promote U.S. and international policies toward Africa that advance economic, political and social justice and the full spectrum of human rights. Documents previously distributed, as well as a wide range of additional information, are also available on the Web at: http://www.africaaction.org To be added to or dropped from the distribution list write to [log in to unmask] For more information about reposted material, please contact directly the source mentioned in the posting. Africa Action 110 Maryland Ave. NE, #508, Washington, DC 20002. Phone: 202-546-7961. Fax: 202-546-1545. 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