The Rwanda Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM) of the Global Fund has pledged to implement a newly initiated Evolution project to enhance its governance in the Health Sector.

The pledge was made at the CCM Rwanda annual retreat held in Nyagatare – December 2-3, 2021.

CCM is responsible for coordination and oversight of all grants supported by the Global Fund to Fight HIV, Tuberculosis and Malaria. 

The retreat established the Oversight and Ethical Committees and approved commencement of the CCM Evolution project.

The Evolution Strategic Initiative (2020- 2023) is a catalytic opportunity to improve core responsibilities of inclusive oversight, meaningful engagement, aligned positioning with national structures and sustainable governance operations.

For the Country Coordinating Mechanism Evolution, the aim is to enhance the Global Fund’s contribution to health governance and increase the impact of investments.

The global Fund explains that CCM Evolution envisions the following principles: Minimize burden of formal assessments – build from existing, streamlined information to rapidly launch interventions, adapt interventions that are responsive to governance needs of engagement and oversight in an evolving context among others.

The Evolution project is intended to equip RCM/CCMs to facilitate inclusive oversight and meaningful engagement in alignment with national structures for sustained health governance.

Global Fund Grants for 2021-2024

The retreat announced new grants for 2021-2024 that have been approved though some with delays, especially the procurement of  local Civil Society Organizations (CSO) that will contribute to the HIV/TB Grant implementation.

The process of notifying CSO to apply for the grants was delayed by almost 3 months, on the other hand CSOs selected for Malaria Grant implementation have been given only 6 months instead of 3 years as per CCM Meeting resolution.

In order to mend this, it was agreed that the CCM would ask Principal Recipients (PRs) to provide clear explanation over this interruption and get new selection of Terms of Reference (ToR) endorsed before advertisement to procure Malaria sub implementers.

The Rwanda Biomedical Center (RBC) Malaria Division Manager who presented the current situation of the grant implementation said that there has been a 6 months’ extension period after which a new recruitment and selection of new NGO to implement the New Grant Malaria 2021-2024 will be conducted.

46th GF Board Meeting and Resolutions

The 46th GF board meeting embarked on elaborating new strategies with some resolutions taken towards this goal, including: the approval of the Strategy Narrative, the Global Disease Split, the Recommended Updates to Risk Appetite, the Independent Evaluation Function, and the 2022 Corporate Work Plan and Operating Expenses Budget.

On the New Disease program split will be done as follows:

•        Any available funds for country allocation up to and including US$ 12 billion will be apportioned as follows: 50% for HIV/AIDS, 18% for tuberculosis, and 32% for malaria; and

•        Any additional available funds for country allocation above US$ 12 billion will be shared out as follows:

i, 45% of such funds will be allocated to HIV/AIDS;

ii. 25% of such funds will be allocated to tuberculosis; and

iii. 30% of such funds will be allocated to malaria.

Finally, the GF Board members used the retreat as an opportunity to understand the new focus and see how Rwanda CCM could contribute to its implementation.  

On this occasion, members discussed the GF Board Nominations and identified potential Rwanda candidate to represent the Eastern Southern Africa Constituency.

During the retreat, it was revealed that so far, the project Task Force has been established to drive and lead the Evolution process and a survey on the current functioning has also been conducted.

Findings of the survey will be the basis for identification of key priority interventions.

This annual retreat was an opportunity for CCM to establish two committees (Ethics and Oversight Committees) which have been missing due to many reasons which include committee members leaving due to individual reasons.

Specifically, the Rwanda CCM Ethics Committee will be very crucial to ensure key eligibility performance criteria that are required by the EPA member states.