Scuttling of Global Fund’s India CCM Election Process

[Guest guest]

Bangalore/4th April, 2009

Dear friends

We are shocked at the way our (Suraksha WRHCP) candidature to contest Global

Fund’s India CCM CSO Elections 2009 (http://www.indiaccm-elections.org) under

the sub sector ‘Organizations working on the issues of Sexual Minorities’ was

rejected.

The stated reason for rejecting our application was " *Your organisation has in

fact not met the following criteria set by the CMM Election Sub-Committee.

- Primarily working in the specific sub-sector that is sought to be

represented " *

We are at a loss how the committee came to this conclusion given that most of

our work and almost all of our funding in the past 4 years has been for working

with sexual minorities, primarily from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

We are also shocked at the blatant unfairness of the whole process, given that

the India CCM election process claims to be transparent and fair. Below we list

the events that lead us to come to the above conclusion.

- Finalized list of eligible candidates was suppose to be uploaded to the

website on 2nd April however the same was put up only on April 3rd afternoon

- The email informing the rejection of our candidature arrived on the

afternoon of 3rd April

- On April 4th morning when we contacted Mr. Pawan Varma (Election

Secretariat, MAMTA Health Institute for Mother and Child) and enquired about

reason for stating that Suraksha doesn’t primarily work with sexual minorities,

he stated that it was the decision of the Election Sub-Committee. When asked

about the detailed information for rejecting our candidature and to the process

to appeal against the decision, he asked us to send a email to him, which he

will forward to the sub-committee.

He said that a we may not get a response till the 6th given that 4th and 5th are

holidays

- Given the urgency of the matter (voting starts 9am on 7th April) how fair is

it to have the rejection of the candidate and no time/ process to appeal?

- When asked about the composition of the Election sub-committee, he said that

he is not authorized to reveal this info. When questioned about the lack of

transparency and lack of a contact point to discuss this matter, he asked us to

get in touch with Komal Khanna and Ashima Mohan from the Secretariat of the

India-CCM for The Global Fund.

He was willing to give us only the land line phone numbers and not mobile phone

numbers. He also stated that they will not be working on the 4th and 5th April.

We called the landline phone numbers mentioned in the India CCM website on 4th

morning one of the numbers is invalid and there is no response to the other

number.

This makes us believe that these elections are seriously compromised and raises

serious questions about democracy, transparency and participation.

We appeal to all fair minded people and organization to raise your voice against

this wilful scuttling of the election process.

Please feel free to contact us for more information.

In Solidarity

Elavarthi Manohar

Suraksha WRHCP

Bangalore, India

Mobile: +91 9632223460

e-mail: <manoharban@...>

*Copies to:*

1. Communities Delegation to the board of the Global Fund

2. Developing Country NGO Delegation to the board of the Global Fund

3. Developed Country NGO Delegation to the board of the Global Fund

4. India CCM Secretariat

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http://manoharban.wordpress.com/