Changes to the Global Fund's CCM Guidelines

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Changes to the Global Fund's CCM Guidelines

At its meeting in November 2007, the Global Fund Board modified its

CCM Guidelines ( " Guidelines on the Purpose, Structure, Composition

and Funding for Country Coordinating Mechanisms and Requirements for

Grant Eligibility " ). The Board made three major changes or additions:

1. The Board added " key affected populations " to the list of sectors

that the Global Fund recommends be represented on CCMs (as reported

by GFO in Issue #80).

2. The Board adopted a new mechanism for funding the administrative

costs of CCMs (as reported by GFO, also in Issue #80).

3. The Board adopted new guidelines on the types of civil society and

private sector representation it believes are most relevant to the

work of CCMs.

The purpose of this article is to describe some of these

modifications in more detail, and to indicate where readers can

obtain additional information.

Note: The revised CCM Guidelines document is available in English at

www.theglobalfund.org/en/apply/mechanisms/guidelines. Versions

provided on that page in other languages do not yet reflect all the

changes discussed in this article.

Key affected populations

In the revised CCM Guidelines, the Global Fund states that " in order

to ensure vulnerable and marginalized groups are adequately

represented, the Global Fund strongly encourages CCMs to consider how

to improve the representation and participation of representatives

from such groups on the CCM, taking into account the scale of the

national epidemic of the three diseases and the key affected

populations in the national context. " The CCM Guidelines cite the

following UNAIDS definition of " affected populations " : " women and

girls, youth, men who have sex with men (MSM), injecting and other

drug users, sex workers, people living in poverty, prisoners, migrant

laborers, people in conflict and post-conflict situations, refugees

and internally displaced persons. "

The CCM Guidelines recommend that key affected populations should be

among the non-government sectors making up at least 40 percent of the

CCM.

The CCM Guidelines do not provide any guidance with respect to how

CCMs can improve representation from key affected populations. (The

issue of how best to achieve representation from vulnerable groups is

discussed in " The Aidspan Guide to Building and Running an Effective

CCM – Second Edition, " available at www.aidspan.org/guides.)

Funding for CCMs

On 21 December 2007, the Global Fund Secretariat issued a communiqué

(in English) to CCMs providing details on the new funding policy for

CCMs, and explaining how CCMs can initiate a request for funding. The

communiqué says that the Secretariat will start accepting

applications as of 1 January 2008. The text of the communiqué is

available at

www.theglobalfund.org/en/media_center/press/an_071221.asp.

The Secretariat has also prepared a CCM Funding Request Form. It is

available in the six official U.N. languages ( English, French,

Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Chinese) at

www.theglobalfund.org/en/apply/mechanisms. The Form, an Excel file,

includes a section for the CCM to provide details on the CCM funding

budget. Finally, the Secretariat has prepared guidelines on the new

CCM funding policy. English, Spanish, Russian and Arabic versions of

the guidelines are available at

www.theglobalfund.org/en/apply/mechanisms; versions in French and

Chinese are expected to be posted on the same site shortly.

Guidelines on Civil Society and Private Sector Representation

The English version of the revised CCM Guidelines document contains

an annex entitled " Guidelines on Types of Civil Society and Private

Sector Representation Most Relevant to the Work of CCMs "

(hereinafter " Representation Guidelines " ). The Global Fund says that

the Representation Guidelines " are intended to provide guidance for

CCMs wishing to strengthen and/or improve " representation from these

sectors, particularly in light of the CCMs' roles in proposal

development and grant oversight.

The Representation Guidelines contain lists of the types of

representation from civil society and the private sector that the

Global Fund suggests be included on CCMs. The list for civil society

representatives is as follows:

•vulnerable groups/key populations

•women's organisations

•children and young people

•international NGOs working in the three diseases

•experienced national NGOs working in the three diseases

•religious and faith-based groups

•academia

The list for private sector representatives is as follows:

• large for-profit companies with a proven commitment to fight the

three diseases

• organisations representing small- and mid-sized enterprises and the

informal sector

•business associations to fight HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria

•representatives from exposed industries

•private practitioners and for-profit clinics

•charitable foundations established by corporations

The lists are not meant to be exhaustive.

The Representation Guidelines provide a rationale for including each

type of representation on the lists. For example, for women's

organisations, the Guidelines state that " women and young girls are

often most affected by the three diseases and are particularly

vulnerable due to physiological as well as socio-economic factors. It

is important that women's organizations, as well as other

organizations representing the concerns of women, are well-

represented on CCMs to ensure that programmatic issues relating to

gender are reflected in proposals to the Global Fund. "

Reproduced from the Global Fund Observer Newsletter

(www.aidspan.org/gfo), a service of Aidspan.