Documents released to the Mail & Guardian by the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria contradict recent loveLife claims that its funding was cut primarily because of United States-led right-wing ideology and pressure from ”progressives” critical of the South African government.
The documents reveal that a panel convened by the fund advocated no additional funding for loveLife because the latter’s programme had not met its ”impact [performance] targets”. The panel also voiced concerns over financial and programme management.
Rejecting loveLife’s claims that the United States government had forced the decision, fund spokesperson Jon Liden said the decision to discontinue funding in December last year was most strongly supported by representatives of communities living with the disease and NGOs across the world.
The fund established a panel to review loveLife’s performance after the organisation requested an additional $51,5-million in February last year. In the first phase of funding, it received $16,5-million.
The panel comprised senior management members of the fund’s secretariat: the chief of operations, the director of strategic information and evaluation, the chief administrative officer and the chief financial officer.
In May and July, the panel recommended that the fund refuse loveLife’s funding request. A presentation made to the board in September highlights its key concerns.
In essence, the panel did not believe loveLife had made sufficient progress on its impact targets to warrant further investment.
In the light of the programme’s goal to reduce HIV prevalence among adolescents by 50%, the panel was concerned that ”there was little evidence of delivery of services of programmatic importance for HIV/Aids”.
The panel found that there was an apparent lack of progress in slowing the epidemic between 2001 and 2004, and voiced concern over loveLife’s promotion of non-barrier contraceptives.
It also disputed loveLife’s claim that the programme had significantly improved services in public-sector clinics.
Although the panel did find that loveLife had met many programme ”indicators”, it placed particular focus on the ”chill rooms” set by the organisation as an intervention point with young South Africans. Only 43% of these had been built, the fund noted.
Problems with financial and institutional sustainablility were also raised in connection with a KPMG report citing serious financial concerns about the programme.
The panel was also concerned that loveLife was not tracking funds on a donor-by-donor basis, which made it difficult to see that money was being used only for approved purposes.
The panel acknowledged problems facing the programme, such as the late disbursement of funds and the devaluation of the US dollar, which had eroded the grant.
The Global Fund’s board gave loveLife an opportunity to revise its request for additional funding in conjunction with the country coordinating mechanism, the South African National Aids Council (Sanac).
In December, the fund’s technical review panel recommended loveLife for funding provided that it met certain conditions. The board ruled that the conditions were unacceptable and opted to discontinue funding.
loveLife CEO David Harrison this week accused the fund of ”shifting the goalposts over the years”. He said the first ”no-go” recommendation was based on allegations of poor performance, while the panel backtracked and motivated the second in terms of financial mismanagement. Harrison said the latter allegation had less force when errors in the report on financial management were corrected.
He said the real problem was the fund’s unwillingness to stick its neck out on innovative programmes. It was less concerned with the cost-effectiveness of programmes funding treatment or orphan support.
Harrison insisted the funds had been cut for ideological reasons. Conservative board members did not support loveLife because it advocated comprehensively changing behaviour, while ”progressives” conflated the programme with their criticism of the South African government’s stance on HIV/Aids.
Sanac law and human rights representative Mark Heywood said the council had also had reservations about loveLife, despite supporting its request for additional funding. ”Sanac became involved for the first time in October and quite a number of stakeholders expressed reservations,” he said. He and representatives of the children, labour and people with Aids sectors wrote that Sanac should support loveLife’s request provided it modified its operating style.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that the grant withheld from loveLife will not be reallocated in South Africa this year. Grants allocated in previous rounds will continue to be disbursed.
”I think it is a blow not just to loveLife but to HIV prevention in South Africa that this significant amount of money has been stopped,” said Heywood.