The Global Fund delegation of communities living with or affected by AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, via their Board Member, have just published the results of a study carried out with the Open Society Foundation to examine the effects of the Fund's new policy and strategy decisions on Civil Society program implementation and on the key affected populations.
In 2011, following a series of alarming reports released in late 2010 by the Global Fund's Inspector General regarding misappropriation and misuse of funds in a number of countries, the Fund announced a new set of policies to mitigate risk, to take immediate effect. Given that Global Fund is a key source of financing of civil society programs in the fight against the three diseases in developing countries, this is likely to have a considerable impact on key affected populations.
While voicing continuing support to the need to optimize use of grant funds, the results and recommendations of the report incite Global Fund to caution, fearing that risk mitigation efforts may already have gone too far, resulting in increased rigidity in its procedures, and stifling innovation and the ability to respond to countries' needs. The report emphasizes the need for continued support both to innovative programs and to civil society as a whole.
zeGOgroup is in full agreement with this stance, which is fully consistent with our own experience in the field, and could even imagine extending it to all programs in countries qualified as "fragile states". But, unless we are to completely destroy the new development paradigm established by the Global Fund ten years ago, it is useless in the long term to impose rigorous financial and fiduciary controls without simultaneously working to build countries' capacities in financial and programmatic management, and emphasizing the need for good governance within the overall framework of transparency and accountability.