Board Decisions

GF/B26/DP05

Approved by the Board on: 11 May 2012

Delegation of Authority to Secretariat for Grant Operations

1. The Board notes that:
   1. it has previously made decisions restricting the timeframe for signing grant agreements, placing parameters around the flexibility to set grant start dates, limiting the ability to extend the total length of a grant, and detailing the process for Phase 2 and Periodic Reviews;
   2. the principles surrounding these decisions remain valid and support the Global Fund’s mandate to efficiently and effectively provide funding to programs while ensuring that only strategic, cost-effective investments are made; and
   3. while the general principles remain valid, there is a need to allow for additional flexibilities, where necessary, to ensure the Secretariat is able to independently respond to grant specific needs while managing day-to-day grant management operations.
2. In order to address certain operational constraints and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the Secretariat in grant management operations, the Board
   1. further delegates to the Secretariat, in line with the authorities provided under GF/B24/EDP/4, the authority to approve extensions of up to three months to the signing timeframe for future approved proposals on an exceptional case-by-case basis and only in situations in which there is a strong justification for granting an extension;
   2. extends the authorities provided under GF/B24/EDP/7 by delegating to the Secretariat the authority to make exceptions, due to operational needs, to the general principle that grant start dates should not be set beyond 15 months, or 18 months, as applicable, after Board approval of a proposal; so long as no exception results in a grant start date being set beyond 22 months after Board approval of a proposal;
   3. delegates to the Secretariat the authority to make exceptions, due to compelling circumstances, to the existing policy which only allows for a maximum extension period of six months to the total length of a grant’s implementation period, at the end of a program; so long as any extension does not lengthen the total implementation period by more than twelve additional months; and
   4. delegates to the Secretariat the authority to, on an exceptional case-by-case basis:
      1. provide additional no-cost extensions to the current grant implementation period during the renewals process, based on specific grant related circumstances, to allow for continued grant implementation; and Delegation of Authority to Secretariat for Grant Operations
      2. amend conditions upon which the Board has conditioned the approval of incremental funding where necessary to account for changes in circumstances; so long as measures are available to effectively mitigate the risk addressed in the condition.
3. In order to ensure proper oversight, the Secretariat must limit the ability to approve the use of the delegations of authority granted above to the appropriate panel or committee of senior managers within the Secretariat
4. The Board requests that the Secretariat prepare a report twice a year detailing any exceptions or extensions approved in connection with this decision point and submit such report to the Strategy, Investment and Impact Committee (the “SIIC”) for review. The first such report will be submitted to the SIIC prior to its first meeting in 2013.