DFID Challenge Fund for HIV & AIDS in India

[Guest guest]

Challenge Fund Introduction

The Programme Management Organisation (PMO) has been contracted by

the UK Department for International Development (DFID) to set up and

manage a Challenge Fund for HIV and AIDS to support the national

response to HIV and AIDS. The Challenge Fund has been established as

part of the agreement with the Government of India to support its

National AIDS Control Programme (NACP II). It is part of the

technical package which complements existing financial support

through the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO)

In this context the Challenge Fund is designed to provide the

opportunity for organisations to develop and consolidate innovative

responses to HIV/AIDS that are not funded as part of NACO's support

to State AIDS Control Societies (SACS).

Objectives of the Challenge Fund

Key Principles

Challenge Fund Activities

Partnership Grants

Building Knowledge and Experience

Communications

Confidentiality

Conflict of Interest

Objectives of the Challenge Fund

The Challenge Fund aims to stimulate civil society initiatives for a

better national response to HIV/AIDS now and in the future. The

Challenge Fund aims to ensure alignment with the Government of

India's response to HIV and AIDS.

Key Principles

The key principles that underpin the fund are that it:

Benefits the most vulnerable populations.

Promotes innovation and/ or improvements in the response to HIV and

AIDS. Adheres to `Greater Involvement of People affected by HIV and

AIDS' (GIPA)

The Challenge Fund is designed to fit within DFID's and NACO's

funding cycle and will therefore operate until March 2007. Given the

short life of the fund, the focus is on activities that can be seen

to have a broader impact on long-term planning.

Challenge Fund Activities

The Challenge Fund will:

Award Partnership Grants to civil society organisations which reach

vulnerable populations through large existing partnerships/

networks.

Build knowledge and experience by stimulating investigation and

learning activities for greater national and state-level

responsiveness to HIV/AIDS.

Partnership Grants

The PMO is soliciting applications for Partnership Grants as part of

the Challenge Fund.

These grants will be awarded to a small number of organisations

with established partnerships/ networks and the capacity to deliver

large HIV/ AIDS programmes in India. The key eligibility criteria

will be based on an organisation's ability to implement a range of

projects rather than specific HIV/ AIDS programming experiences.

Organisations will need to be able to demonstrate the capacity to

develop and enhance responses to HIV/ AIDS.

Partnership Grants will run for twelve months to fit within NACO and

DFID's planning cycle. However, the PMO encourages applications that

can demonstrate how the programme will contribute to the broader

national strategic objectives to respond to HIV and AIDS.

Building Knowledge and Experience

The PMO has allocated separate funding to complement the Partnership

Grants that aims to support the Challenge Fund's objectives. This

will take the form of a larger number of smaller contracts to

undertake specific capacity building, research, learning and

dissemination activities that will not only inform interventions

under the Challenge Fund and other HIV/ AIDS programmes, but also

synchronise learning with national and state level responses.

There will be two types of contracts for this component of the

Challenge Fund. The first group – larger contracts – will be

competitively tendered throughout the year, and full details will be

announced on the PMO website. The second group of contracts will

follow a restricted tendering process. Invitations will be issued to

selected organisations that have pre-qualified and are registered in

our database. The PMO is currently seeking applications from

organisations interested in pre-qualifying to be registered in this

database.

Communications

The PMO is committed to ensuring a transparent, accountable, non-

biased and reliable process for the management of the Challenge

Fund.

As a principle, the PMO will share all relevant information

regarding the Challenge Fund and decision-making processes at

appropriate times in the contracting process. However, this policy

is framed within the context of needing to ensure communications are

consistent and fair for all potential applicants. The PMO has a

detailed communication strategy detailing communication principles

for each stage of the contracting process.

PMO staff will not entertain any phone calls regarding the

contracting process referring any enquiry to the website where all

necessary information will be posted. Similarly, visitors without an

appointment will be discouraged from the PMO offices during the

contracting process.

Any attempt by an applicant or an associate of an applicant to

influence a PMO staff member or consultant, or the process itself

will risk rejection of its application.

Confidentiality

The PMO staff and consultants will take all necessary measures to

maintain confidentiality throughout the contracting process. This is

designed to protect the integrity of the process, but also protect

individual applications from any external pressure.

The PMO staff and consultants have agreed a series of

confidentiality measures during the contracting process in our

confidentiality policy.

Conflict of Interest

The impartiality and professionalism of the Challenge Fund must be

preserved and protected. Accordingly, the PMO's operations with

regard to specific funding allocations shall be entirely independent

of and without influence from individual views or opinions outside

the formal review process. To ensure continued professionalism, all

members of PMO staff and consultants are subject to a Conflict of

Interest Policy

http://www.pmo-hiv.org/challenge_fund.html