World Bank responds to GFF Advisory Group concerns
14th December 2015
Responding to concerns over civil society engagement in the Global Financing Facility (GFF), Tim Evans and Diane Jacovella [1] have written to members of the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition reaffirming the Bank’s commitment to civil society participation, both globally and especially at country level. The letter follows a signed statement by 37 members of the Coalition’s GFF Advisory Group and others, calling on Bank President Jim Yong Kim to ensure robust systems for monitoring funding flows, particularly those for reproductive health supplies, and for setting standards that guarantee the integrity, transparency, and accountability of GFF “Country Platforms”—a generic term referring to any of the national coordinating bodies charged with planning and overseeing GFF-related investments and activities on the ground.
The Advisory Group’s concerns were reinforced by a recent series of Bank-organized civil society consultations in Nairobi, which left many feeling that the engagement, though well-intentioned, exposed the wide gulf separating two very different world views. During the two-day consultation, for example, some representatives of civil society had been selected by government and included organizations with little experience in reproductive health or the GFF. The eyes of our community are now fixed on 29 February, when the GFF’s governing body, the Investor’s Group, is scheduled to set guidelines for the structure of Country Platforms and the tracking of financial flows. Copies of the letters to and from Dr. Jim Yong Kim are available here.
1 Tim Evans is Senior Director of the Health, Nutrition & Population Global Practice at the World Bank. Diane Jacovella is the Chair of the Investors Group, the GFF’s governing body