THE Global Fund To Fight Aids TB and Malaria has raised Zimbabwe’s ratings for being one of the countries meeting their Grant performance expectations.
By Kudakwashe Pembere
Aidspan, a Global Fund independent observer, explains that every few months, the Global Fund assigns each grant a rating that measures the performance of that grant over the past few months. These ratings are A1 (“Exceeds expectations”), A2 (“Meets expectations”), B1 (“Adequate”), B2 (“Inadequate but potential demonstrated”) or C (“Unacceptable”). In the map below, we show the average rating assigned by the Global Fund since January 2010 for grants to each country. Where a country has had fewer than four ratings assigned, no average rating is shown.
In an interview with HealthTimes, the Project Manager for the Global Fund Grant at UNDP Emmanuel Boadi said despite the economic challenges in the country, the Grant is performing well and was placed into the A2 class.
“We were rated A2. The A2means the grant performed between 90 to 100 percent which is very, very important. What that also means is that whatever Global Fund has approved the budget that has been approved for the country, we can assess all the money, 100 percent. For instance, if we perform below 80 percent you can’t access the money,” he said.
He added that areas related to the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) needed to be improved.
“The grant has been performing well but there are few areas that needs improving including few indicators related to PMTCT. In terms of performances, it’s declining so we need to work hard to make sure we perform on those indicators. So we need to do an analysis to identify the bottlenecks and find ways to improve,” Boadi said.
A global fund consultant Mr Martin Alando said the country coordinating mechanism in Zimbabwe was doing well in terms of playing a strategic oversight role over the Grant but recommended to set up a strategic oversight committee which has features such as a web dashboard.
“The PR Dashboard will be complete in three months but the technical support for the establishment of this committee will take about a year,” he said.
The Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa pledged USD1 million towards the Global Fund’s six replenishment with local country coordinating mechanism working on the application of the next grant.
