role in overall health sector governance. The Strategy Committee should review the core functions of CCMs. The Ethics and Governance Committee should propose the adaptation of the Global Fund Ethical Framework to the CCM. The Audit and Finance Committee should asses the resources needed by CCMs. CCMs should be strengthened. The Secretariat should provide more guidance to CCMs. Country dialogues should reach beyond disease-specific stakeholders. Safeguarding CCM principles in transitioning countries The Board should provide guidance on how to secure the participation of civil society and key populations in decision-making and oversight. The Board should require reporting from the Secretariat on CCM integration and broad multi-stakeholder participation with respect to transitions. Countries should be supported in writing and implementing transition work plans. Countries should be supported in setting up sustainable partnerships. (Re)prioritizing the engagement of civil society and key populations Progress on Community, Rights and Gender should become a standard reporting item to the Board. A broader definition of key populations should be agreed. The results of the ongoing community engagement study need to be translated into recommendations. The Secretariat should work with the OIG to explore how civil society and key population engagement in CCM oversight can be enhanced.
Other country-specific details Annex A of the allocation letter explicitly indicates the focus of application requirements for each country. Upper-middle-income countries, such as Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Romania, are required to commit 100% of the funding for maintaining or scaling up evidence-based interventions for key and vulnerable populations – or new technologies and innovations that represent global best practice. The letters to these countries said, “Funding requests can include interventions for ensuring transition readiness, which should include critical RSSH needs for sustainability as well as improve equitable coverage and uptake of services.” For the other countries – all upper and lower lower-middle-income – the letters define program design priorities for only 50% of the funding. This is consistent with Global Fund policy. Only two countries out of the 12 in our sample are eligible for catalytic funding. Kyrgyzstan may receive up to $1 million for an HIV component on “Programs to remove human barriers to health services.” Ukraine is eligible for up to $15.2 million for four different components, specifically “HIV: Key populations impact” ($3.9 million); “HIV: Programs to remove human rights-related barriers to health services” ($2.3 million); “TB: Finding missing TB cases” ($7.0 million); and “RSSH: Data systems, data generation, data use” ($2.0 million). Finally, Uzbekistan may receive an incentive award of $400,000 (drawn from its malaria 2014-2016 allocation) if it is able to present a malaria elimination certificate prior to 31 December 2018. _________________________________ 6. NEWS: Significant improvement required in grant management in high-risk countries: OIG Both the design and implementation of additional measures to manage these grants are imperfect, the OIG says David Garmaise 31 January 2017 Measures taken by the Global Fund to manage grants in high-risk environments are inadequate. This is the central conclusion of an audit performed by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) in 2016. A on the audit was released on 23 January 2017. In this article, we provide a summary of the audit findings. We plan to do a separate article on the actions the Secretariat has agreed to take in response to the findings.