Global Fund holds meeting to select sub-recipients for malaria and TB programmes

Aug 13, 2019 News

While its selections have not yet been made public, this past week the Global Fund Country Coordinating Mechanism held an extraordinary. The meeting on Friday was presided over by Education Minister, Nicolette Henry, the Country Coordinating Mechanism Chairperson, and was intended to address the endorsement of recommendations presented by its review committee.

The meeting presided over by Minister Nicolette Henry (third on right) in session on Friday. PAHO/WHO] Resident Representative, Dr. William Adu-Krow is at the head of the table

Members were tasked with reviewing the proposals submitted by organisations interested in becoming sub-recipients for both the Malaria and Tuberculosis programmes in Guyana.
Among those present at the meeting was Pan American Health Organisation/World Health Organisation [PAHO/WHO] Resident Representative, Dr. William Adu-Krow.
Although international funding has been dwindling to sustain gains made in the fight against HIV for instance, in 2018 it was reported that Global Fund’s Board had factored Guyana into a batch of HIV grants that were approved.
Reporting on this development was Aidspan, a non-profit organization based in Kenya which has as its mission to reinforce the effectiveness of Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, by serving as an independent watchdog of the Fund and its grant implementers.
According to the Aidspan report, the timeframe for the grant approved for Guyana was January 1, 2018 to December 2020. The Health Ministry was named as the Principal Recipient, which it also noted managed Guyana’s previous HIV grant.
It was revealed that in 2017, Guyana submitted a programme continuation request for its HIV component. Programme continuation requests are meant to simplify the funding request process for well-performing grants that have been recently reviewed by the Technical Review Panel [TRP] and do not require significant programmatic overhaul.
This, Aidspan noted, meant that “The epidemiological context and geographic focus of interventions remain the same when compared to the previous request. The country continues to experience a mixed epidemic that disproportionately affects key and vulnerable populations –– men who have sex with men (MSM), female sex workers, transgender people, miners and loggers. The strategic focus was on increasing impact by implementing mixed strategies to intensify the linkages to treatment and instituting a “treat all” policy.”
According to the TRP, Aidspan noted, the proposed programme built upon the successes and lessons learned from Guyana’s prior programming for key populations, and aligned with the mid-term evaluation and revision of the National Strategic Plan [NSP] called HIVISION 2020); 2020 HIV cascade projections; the Centers for Disease Control [CDC]’s Allocative Efficiency and Programme Effectiveness Study; and a 2016–2017 comprehensive reprogramming request to ensure alignment with Guyana’s goal of eliminating AIDS and its negative social and economic impacts on the population.
In the opinion of the TRP, Guyana demonstrated a commitment to its HIV response by progressively increasing its investments in operating costs, human resources and medicines in order to maintain or scale up programming. This increase in domestic spending is intended to offset funding reductions from PEPFAR and the Global Fund, which the TRP said were in the order of 30 percent and 50 percent respectively, Aidspan reported.
Recognising that Guyana has launched a sustainability committee to spearhead the discussion on sustainability and transition and deliver a sustainability and transition plan, Aidspan said that the committee has benefited from support from a consultant from the Health Financing and Governance [HFG] Project, a USAID initiative.

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