The Global Fund Country Team has concluded a three week working mission to Liberia. The mission took place from 5 to 23 November 2018.
The team was led by Ms. Seble T. Abebe, Fund Portfolio Manager (FPM) for Liberia of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria.
Other members of the team were Deborah Asante-Luisier (Global Fund Program Officer), Ralph Bendo (Global Fund Senior Program Officer), Mam Jow Njie (Global Fund Senior Finance Specialist), Marta Darder (Global Fund Specialist Health Product Management), and Aneta Wierzynska, (Senior Specialist, Anti-Corruption and Impact, Ethics Office of the Global Fund).
The mission was in addition to the routine follow-up of the implementation progress and site visits by the Country Team.
In a debrief meeting with executives of the LCM, Ms. Seble T. Abebe, the Fund Portfolio Manager, disclosed that the main objective of the mission was to basically discuss programmatic and financial performance of each grant by Principal Recipients (PRs).
The PRs of the Global Fund grants for the period 2018-2020 are Ministry of Health for Tuberculosis and Health System Strengthening (HSS), Ministry of Health and Population Services International for HIV, and Ministry of Health and Plan International Liberia for Malaria.
Additionally the mission was intended to conduct an annual Performance Review of the Fiscal Agent; to conduct dedicated sessions with the Liberia Coordinating Mechanism (LCM) on the revised policies on Global Fund Code of Conduct and Conflict of Interest (CoI); to conduct an in-depth analysis of Fraud Risk Assessment in grant implementation; and to discuss implementation status of the Joint Integrated Supportive Supervision (JISS) and initiate Fraud Risk Assessment to ensure success of the JISS.
Other objectives were to discuss on-going supply chain strengthening efforts; to get detailed information on the status of implementation of viral load testing, specifically utilization rate of the platform, and status of upgrading of the TB Reference Laboratory; and to hold discussion on utilization rate of GeneXpert for TB and HIV and sample transport systems in Liberia.
The Chair of the LCM, Cllr. Tiawan S. Gongloe thanked Mrs. Abebe, the Fund Portfolio Manager for Liberia for the mission.
For him, the mission is about helping to strengthen system for the successful implementation of the Global Fund grant in Liberia. He added that the implementation of the grant, of which the LCM has oversight, is about the integrity of the country and improving the health system of Liberia. “This is about building a system of trust and integrity that we ought to protect as the LCM. Someone once said integrity is when no one is looking. When the Global Fund is not looking, we the executives of the LCM have to provide oversight for the grant, something we’ve been doing. So thank you for coming to continue what you’ve started, Cllr. Gongloe said.
This mission was the third and the longest undertaken in 2018.
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