First Year Update for Southern NGOs-GFATM
-Milly Katana, Uganda
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First Year Update for Southern NGOs- The Global Fund To Fight AIDS, TB And
Malaria (GFATM)

1st January 2003- Southern NGO Board Team: Milly Katana, Board Member and
Rev. Fidon Mwombeki, Alternate Board Member

As we come to the end of the first year of operation of the GFATM, we
would like to give you a brief update on the current status of affairs.

Today, the GFATM has been able to attract $2.1B for a period of 5 years.
This is a major breakthrough in resource mobilization for a global cause
of this nature. The resources so far realized are indeed below the
estimated annual $10B that was anticipated when the Secretary General of
the United Nations, Mr Kofi Anna called for the International Community to
establish a Global Fund to respond to AIDS in April 2001.

In the past year, the GFATM has approved 54 proposals from the first round
of proposals for a period of 2 years. The total investment in these
projects is approximately $620M. A second invitation of proposals was
issued in July 2002 and a total number of 150 proposals worth
approximately $1.1B have been received.

The Board will meet at end of January 2003 to make decisions on these
proposals. We have received information that NGOs proposals had major
difficulties in getting endorsement especially for proposals that were
targeting access to HIV/AIDS treatment.

The GFATM Secretariat and the Chairperson have been able to enter into
four grant agreements. By end of January 2003, which will be the first
Anniversary of the Fund, a total of 20 grant agreements will be made from
the first round of proposals. It has taken long, from April 2002 when the
board approved the proposals from eth first round, due to logistical
arrangements that had to be negotiated by the Secretariat and the
recipient projects. It has been a tiring process characterized by a lot of
innovation and often disagreements between in-country parties. Such
disagreements, in a few cases have led to slowed-down processes until the
partnerships have been streamlined and strengthened. With the enormous
wealth of experience that has been accumulated from managing the first
round of proposals in the first year, it is anticipated that the second
round agreements and those remaining from the first round will be reached
relatively faster. Indeed each proposal is handled on a case- by-case
basis, but experience is available to draw lessons from.

There are still approved NGO proposals from the first round for which
grant agreements cannot be made yet due to lack of endorsement by country
coordinating mechanisms (CCMs), as required by the GFATM. The NGO board
members, like all the other board members, are greatly concerned about
this delay, which is frustrating the efforts of the civil society
community to effectively participate in grassroots response to HIV/AIDS,
TB and Malaria.

As part of making the most effective use of the skills of the board
members, the board in October approved four working committees. These
committees include Governance and Partnerships, Procurement, Resource
Mobilization, and Monitoring, Evaluation, Finance and Audit. The Southern
NGO board members serve on two of the committees i.e. Governance and
Partnerships, and Monitoring, Evaluation, Finance and Audit/ Colleagues
from the NGOs from the developed countries and Communities of people
living with and affected by the three disease serve on the other
committees in a synergistic effort to make issues that are of special
interest to the civil society effectively death with.

The GFATM has suffered physical loss of a serving board member Charles
Roy, representing Communities living with and affected by the three
diseases. Charles passed away in September 2002.

During the months of August and September 2002, the NGO delegations
carried out an assessment of the involvement of communities and Civil
Society Organizations and people living with HIV/AIDS in the country
coordination mechanisms processes of the GFATM. On behalf of the Southern
NGO board team, the assessment was coordinated by the Asia-Pacific Network
of AIDS Service Organizations (APCASO). We greatly acknowledge APCASO and
others who facilitated the survey process. The result was that the level
of involvement greatly varies from one country to another, with many
countries having the level of involvement in this private-public
partnership still wanting. We thank all of you who participated in this
survey.

During the first year, the Latin American Network of People Living with
HIV/AIDS (REDLA+) kindly offered to serve as the Communication Focal Point
for the Southern NGO Board team. REDLA has done a commendable job of
backstopping the board member and the alternate on all matters related to
interfacing with the GFATM secretariat and the communities. Particular
recognition is made of LACCASO- the Latin American Network who have
facilitated the interaction between eth board team and the
Spanish-speaking Communities.

We request you to consider the following actions during 2003:

i. Continue putting up the case and remind the world of the business sense
of investing in alleviating the impact of HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria.
Particular efforts should be made to reach governments in the South and
the private sector as effective stakeholders' to invests in the GFATM.

ii. Remind parties who have pledged resources to eth GFATM to make good
their pledges on time so as to channel resources to the second round of
proposals which will be approved in January 2003.

iii. Effective participation at the country level processes to reflect the
private-public partnership philosophy of the GFATM at the global level

iv. Supporting the effective use of the resources channelled by the GF to
scale up intervention at country level.

We thank all colleagues who have supported us during the first year and
wish you all a fruitful 2003.

Milly Katana
Email:[email protected]

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A posting from AF-AIDS ([email protected])