COVID-19

Updated C19RM Guidelines: New Assurance Section

18 June 2021

The updated C19RM Guidelinesdownload in English | Español | Français ] cover the end-to-end process of C19RM from funding request stage until grant closure, and apply to all applicants and Principal Recipients. The document has been updated to include a differentiated C19RM assurance framework (Section 2.6 and Annex 1). 

As COVID-19 interventions are anticipated to be new and quite different from those of regular grants, greater visibility and oversight across the C19RM lifecycle is required. The new section in the guidelines explains the assurance approach to address incremental programmatic, financial and supply chain-related risks arising from proposed C19RM investments. The updated guidelines will assist in tailoring the required assurance activities to the risks from funding request preparation and screening, award and implementation, to the data monitoring and reporting. 

The Global Fund has approved heightened attention on portfolios with C19RM awards of over $20 million (C19RM Assurance-Prioritized Portfolios). For these countries, the Global Fund will request enhanced reporting from the Principal recipients and the LFA will undertake mandatory minimum assurance which will be communicated in the notification letters. The rest of the portfolios will undertake risk based assurance activities, as per regular practice, and tailored to C19RM investments. 

While these guidelines leverage existing grant structures, emphasis from an assurance standpoint will be towards measuring inputs such as the scale-up of diagnostics, PPE, and treatment and outputs such as timely availability of commodities through in-country assurance of service delivery. 

The C19RM Guidelines have also been updated to include additional reporting requirements for certain Local Sourcing Advised Health Products (currently oxygen products set out at Table 4 of the Health Product Segmentation Framework).