PartnersGF - 2004-04-14

Open letter to GF Board Vice-Chairperson
Paul S. Zeitz, USA
******************

To: Helene Rossert-Blavier
Vice-Chairperson
Board of Directors
Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria
c/o AIDES, 14, rue Scandicci
F-93508 Pantin, France


Dear Vice Chairperson Rossert-Blavier

On behalf of the Global AIDS Alliance, I would like to express my sincere congratulations to you for recent election as Vice-Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria (Global Fund). It is my view that your election is a significant and historic moment in the history of the Global Fund, as you are the first civil society representative and the first woman to serve in a leadership position of the Global Fund.

The [GF Board] civil society delegations - from the communities infected and affected by AIDS, TB, and Malaria, the global South, and the global North - joined forces in an unprecedented way to support your candidacy. Your election, therefore, clearly demonstrated the leadership role that civil society can and must play in responding to the global AIDS pandemic. Civil society organizations lead the global fight against AIDS, TB, and malaria in each and every country and community around the world. Civil society leads advocacy efforts for the Global Fund resources. Civil society leads efforts to reach impoverished and vulnerable populations at the grassroots with real services to save and improve peoples’ lives.

The Global Fund was created two years ago to do things differently as an innovative and new partnership between governments and civil society that would go beyond traditional geopolitical divisions. Yet today, it appears that many stakeholders are still operating in the old paradigm whereby governments dominate through a North-South donor-recipient power dynamic rather than true partnership between State and non-State actors.

Your election could be a watershed moment for the Global Fund and for the new paradigm that brings into a reality a genuine partnership between civil society, governments, and the private sector.

We hope that your leadership will reverse the disappointing and disillusioning experience many civil society organizations have experienced to date with the Global Fund. Civil society organizations are still being marginalized throughout the Global Fund structure. Evidence is pouring in from around the world that proves this point. CCMs, with the exception of a few, are disgracefully marginalizing civil society, and especially the communities infected and affected by AIDS, TB, and malaria. Governmental Principle Recipients (PRs) are notoriously slow in moving the Global Fund resources, especially with respect to onward granting to civil society organizations. Committed stakeholders need to rethink strategies and we need to expand the role of civil society as policymakers, technical leaders, program designers and implementers in all aspects of the Global Fund.

That is the only way to achieve the results that we all desire. Civil society can and must be brought into leadership at all levels of the Global Fund for it to succeed. Civil society must no longer be tokenized by the Secretariat, by governments, by CCMs, and by the Board.

We hope that your leadership will mobilize all governmental [Global Fund] Board Delegations to include civil society representatives, as is currently done by Latin America and the Caribbean and Italy. We hope that your leadership will mobilize all stakeholders to immediately ensure voting rights [on the GF Board] for the communities infected and affected by AIDS, TB, and Malaria as soon as possible. We hope that your leadership will ensure that the Global Fund Secretariat will adopt a deeper and more inclusive relationship with civil society.

We are inspired by your election and we believe that you will help bring the vision of the Global Fund civil society partnerships into reality! So many lives are depending on our collective action.

Please let me know if there is any way that I or any of our US-based
partners can assist you in this endeavour.

Sincerely yours,

Paul S. Zeitz
Executive Director
Global AIDS Alliance
Washington, D.C., 20036
Email: pzeitz@globalaidsalliance.org
www.globalaidsalliance.org

[Mod: This letter was originally sent to Ms Rossert-Blavier on: 26 March 2004]