FINANCING & ACCOUNTABILITY - QUESTION 3
How can UNAIDS best report on the results of its work and how this work adds value to the global AIDS response?
You are encouraged to include your name, age, gender, and location when you participate, for statistical analysis purposes. Anonymous inputs are also welcome.
Reports need to be done by independent bodies such as academic institutions, i.e. universities or think tank groups. It looks like a conflict of interest if UNAIDS gives the advise to projects, gets involved or leads the research, pays for the research, evaluates impact, reports and congratulates itself on its own achievements. The processes need to be separated. UNAIDS can be the reporting mechanism and an advocacy program, but independent institutions need to do the assessments
ReplyDeleteUNAIDS need to get people living with HIV and also key populations constituent for feed back on reporting and the impact of UNAIDS work in their lives
ReplyDeleteUNAIDS should help support good governance by in cooperating community infected to be board members and key in decision making processes
ReplyDeleteThere is a need for greater accountability of national governments and financial audits by neutral third party auditors.
ReplyDeleteThe work of UNAIDS will add value to the Global AIDS response if it invests resources in mainstreaming the affected population by integrating diagnosis, treatment, care and support services for HIV into the general health services.
Agreeing with Saavedra. With due respect, UNAIDS has sometimes felt like an overbearing 'big relative' who hands down perceived problem and whole program plan. This may in one way or another intimidate and suffocate smaller local/regional initiatives that would otherwise present an effective response. A complimentary approach where local ideas and innovations are coordinated and supported are more likely to bear better and more sustainable results.
ReplyDeleteReporting on the achievements of the Joint Programme needs to reflect the contributions of the individual cosponsors, and in a way that ensures member states understand the important role of each agency. Review the reporting to go beyond health services. For example we need to show progress in all areas of combination prevention to go beyond biomedical interventions. Many cosponsors key social economic determinants that must be reported on
ReplyDeleteThere are three ways to communicate results. The best is through peer-reviewed publications, as this means the work has been properly written up and usually properly peer-reviewed. However we acknowledge that the audience for such publications is small, this leads to the second route which is briefs which have practical application and finally the third route is the popular press. In addition to this, UNAIDS should be a resource for the global community through its reports and website. These need to be accessible and up to date, although it is critical to keep an historical record for reference. It goes without saying that top quality science needs to be supported. What is often not reported though is the "null result" or the negative outcome. These are however just as important. UNAIDS has some core groups such as the Economic Reference Group, which produce important results and which can also help in the dissemination of these results.
ReplyDeleteCommunicate. Communicate. Communicate! Be transparent and document! Reporting is important. UNAIDS needs to talk about its benefit (there is plenty! : the impact of the documentation of HIV related travel restrictions and Human Rights violations, the establishment of the UNAIDS Tasks teams to remove this restrictions ---- there are plenty good examples that demonstrate that UNADS can make a difference for the communities living with HIV. In relation to the GF it is important to address the added value of UNAIDS and how both entities complement one another globally and at country level. GFAN came up with the “cost of inaction paper” to measure the impact to the HIV response should the GF not get fully financed. Why not come up with a paper to measure the impact of a non-fully financed UNAIDS? Would it be difficult to measure? It took almost half a year until we figured out that UNAIDS is in a financial crisis – until now we can only imagine its impact (for example for programs for drug users) and we don’t understand how come that UNAIDS is not communication about it. If you need the support from the community you have to start to communicate with us and facilitate us with the structures communities need to enable them to do so.
ReplyDeleteUNAIDS reports should focus more on the cosponsors achievements and result-based which leads to targeted policy advocacy, and how this work adds to the global response which is currently missing in the reporting system
ReplyDeleteUNAIDS should not just focus on joint work in reporting but the individual work of different agencies - currently it is unclear who does what when the reports come out. This will allow greater levels of accountability for the results obtained and allow for the strategic priorities of the different partners to be better understood and discussed. Each member of the joint programme has an important role to play and this is lost within the reports.
ReplyDeleteThe existence of the Joint Programme Monitoring System is a great initiative. From the Cosponsor point of view, it allows to link the ongoing project (even not funded by UBRAF) with the current UNAIDS Strategy. The launch of the results webpage is also helpful to gather information on the response. What remains to be done, is the communication of the tool. People including National AIDS secretariats and MOH need to be aware of the existence of this tool and can keep tracking the progress - they can call up Cosponsors for accountability if reported activities are not delivering expected results.
ReplyDeleteIn order to improve transparency and accountability, Harm Reduction International recommends that UBRAF allocates dedicated and disaggregated (by result areas, outputs and indicators) funding for each Cosponsor and the Secretariat. This will help in working towards greater accountability and clearer reporting that more effectively demonstrates the contributions of all Cosponsors and the Secretariat, while presenting how each organization uses its UBRAF funds (in accordance with 39th PCB decisions, agenda item 5, point 6.2). We also believe that in order to improve transparency and accountability, Cosponsors and the Secretariat should report not only on how they use its core UBFAR funding but also on how they use its non-core UBRAF funding.
ReplyDeleteThe UBRAF should disaggregate results and outputs for each co-sponsor and the Secretariat, and directly linked to budgets, to ensure greater transparency. At present, it is too difficult to see who is doing what, in return for their respective portions of the UBRAF money. Cosponsors and the Secretariat should report on non-core UBRAF funds as well as core UBRAF money.
ReplyDeleteUNAIDS needs to open up its data and statistical methodology. ART coverage rates compiled by UNAIDS are taken at face values by most, because UNAIDS is the expert. Who's checking if the numbers are real? Skepticism and independent verification are the bedrock of scientific inquiry, and epidemiological research is no exception, there needs to be an independent audit of the UNAIDS data and transparency throughout the organization. Epidemiological statistics should not be politicized, otherwise reality and data might diverge, and we won't know what's really happening with the epidemic on the ground.
ReplyDeleteThere is the need to improve the reporting system of the joint programme to better define and spell out the contributions of the individual cosponsors, and their respective roles in the HIV response.
ReplyDeleteThe data collected by UNAIDS should cover broader issues, including structural factors that have links to HIV. This would also facilitate understanding of co-sponsors contributions to the HIV response beyond the medical spheres
The overall level and depth of reporting needs to be improved. It is not always clear what Co-sponsors have delivered with their core funding, a greater disaggregation of this would strengthen transparency and accountability across the Joint Programme. UNAIDS should also consider commissioning independent evaluations of their work to provide an impartial perspective of their performance and value added.
ReplyDeleteSurely the biggest issue is that lack of transparency on what the Co-Sponsors do with, and what results they get from, the money they receive from the Secretariat and donors. Without that basic level of tranparent, accountable and clear data is very difficult to understand the value of the Joint Programme. It is frankly shocking that the basic level of financial accountability is not given routinely by the Co-Sponsors
ReplyDeleteDear 'sunlight',
Deletethe issue is not lack of transparency but the fact that Cosponsors monitor and report their results to their respective boards following their own results and accountability frameworks. In fact, three of the Cosponsors, notably UNDP, UNICEF and the World Bank, are in the top 10 of the IATI index and rated very good when it comes to transparency: http://ati.publishwhatyoufund.org/index-2016/explore-the-data/. Information on the UNDP Global Fund resources for instance can be found here: http://open.undp.org/#2016/filter/donors-00327.
So the real issue is how to better reflect the contributions of individual cosponsors in the PCB reporting and striking a balance between the requests from different board members to focus on either joint and/or individual results.
Dear Bok,
DeleteNot sure why you refer to me with a different name. But hey-ho.
As a representative of UNDP, I am surprised that you feel that transparency shouldn't be at the heart of the work of the UN system. This is all the more suprising given that UNDP want to play a leading role in transparency in the international system - http://undp-tg.com/undp/content/undp/en/home/operations/transparency/overview.html?i=1
My point isn't about IATI, it is about transparency. UNDP should be accountable to the people who are financing it - UNAIDS. It is frankly a disgrace that you feel that it is fine not to provide UNAIDS with clear information on what you do and the results you achieve with the money. What would you say if an agency/government refused to provide UNDP with any information but pointing out that it was providing the information to another body. UNDP would be outraged.
Frankly the "real issue" is not to better reflect the contributions of co-sponsors - although that is always a good thing - but the fact the co-sponsors feel - and act - that they do not need to tell their financiers what they do and achieve with the vast sums of taxpayers' money they receive.
UNAIDS reporting should build on, and not repeat, reporting from all twelve members of the Joint Programme. At a basic level that should include hyperlinks to Cosponsor HIV and AIDS webpages which may reveal interesting variances. Links could also be made to specific Cosponsor reporting on HIV and AIDS, including to related board decisions and reports. UNAIDS reporting prepared for the PCB should thus focus principally on activities conducted by more than one organization, along with Secretariat-specific results.
ReplyDeleteUNAIDS has had a dearth of long-term evaluation of the overall impact of its work, which has been pointed out by numerous external reviews over the years. This represents a serious gap in accountability, and a missed opportunity to identify and improve from lessons learnt. The Joint Programme has also tended to ‘change the boundaries’, with new initiatives and results structures that has hindered measurement of impact over multiple years – particularly over different results frameworks.
I echo calls for fully independent reporting on UNAIDS work. For example, annual observations of progress on the epidemic from the government, civil society and UNAIDS could be combined. Each of the three stakeholders could even rank progress on a numerical scale, which would help to reveal useful differences in opinion.
Being part of the UN, the Joint Programme is also notoriously bad at honestly measuring its own performance. For publicly funded bodies, this is unacceptable. Cosponsor funding agreements with the UNAIDS should include a number of Key Performance Indicators, for example presence in Fast-Track Joint Programmes and financial reporting at country level. The Secretariat should also have KPIs of its own at a similar level, to allow organizations to be compared and scrutinized. Some form of independent review should be included alongside a (more robust) peer review.
Finally, UNAIDS has suffered by the ambiguity by incorrectly meaning ‘UNAIDS Secretariat’ to some compared to ‘UNAIDS = Joint Programme’. This has led to confusion, for example that the Secretariat is an agency rather than an organization, and meant that Cosponsors feel disenfranchised when they feel their achievements are presented as the Secretariat’s.
An easy way of ensuring the transparency of Co-Sponsors is for UNAIDS to insist - in their legal agreements with the Co-Sponsors - that *all* activity and results must be published on UNAIDS website, and be IATI compliant.
DeleteFocus on the cosponsors achievements and result-based which leads to targeted policy advocacy, and how this work adds to the global response which is currently missing in the reporting system.
ReplyDeleteTo do that though the Co-Sponsors need to report regularly on the results they are achieving with the finance they received from UNAIDS. If they provide any information, it is the absolute minimum and not of sufficient depth or quality to be useful for the kind of advocacy you propose.
DeleteDentro del cronograma de actividades y puntos tratar en las reuniones de la Junta Coordinadora del Programa ONUSIDA, se debe crear un espacio para rendición de cuentas y así informar a todos los miembros de la situación financiera.
ReplyDeleteResults should be released jointly by UNAIDS and countries, or UNAIDS and other key AIDS ecosystem partners and countries as signs of commitment to the AIDS response.
ReplyDeleteThere should be increased focus on the cosponsors achievements and how these successes can be used for targeted policy advocacy and impact the global AIDS response.
ReplyDeleteUNAIDS has to be strongly funded.
ReplyDeleteCo-Sponsors should seek to increase funding to HIV/AIDS from their own resources rather than relying on the Secretariat to raise resources on their behalf - a practice which amounts to a management decision from the Co-Sponsors to de-prioritise HIV/AIDS within their own funding.
The stronger Results based Funding should be enacted. Cosponsors should receive money for the results they have achieved. Now even if there are no results Cosponsors receive their funding.
Для формирования прозрачной отчетности необходимо: разработать унифицированные индикаторы для стран, в которых осуществляются программы/проекты ЮНЭЙДС; и внедрить WEB-ресурс, который будет служить платформой для сбора и хранения данных по выполненным индикаторам программ.
ReplyDeleteUNAIDS should be a model for real-time online reporting of results, using real-time data, personal stories, and examples of UNAIDS in action. There are unprecedented opportunities with social media and new technologies that are not be used by UNAIDS to tell the story of UNAIDS on the ground and also be accountable for results
ReplyDeleteI strongly support the suggestions from Peter Weissner and Alan Whiteside. To add, the lack of strong reporting out of UNAIDS (the full Joint Programme) about both its challenges and its effectiveness means that it is more difficult than it should be to mobilize support for adequate funding. Communities and other stakeholders look to UNAIDS for leadership and support and, if UNAIDS presence is not seen, then they feel abandoned or that UNAIDS is irrelevant. This is a chicken and egg problem as the more underfunded UNAIDS is, the fewer staff people there can be who can gather and disseminate information. The challenges with meaningful reporting between the co-sponsors and the Joint Programme is long-standing and needs to be sorted. What would be useful would be to see the Member States who sit on the different cosponsor and UNAIDS boards come to some consensus about what they want to see and insist on consistent reporting.
ReplyDelete• UNAIDS needs to regain trust among communities, CSO, Key populations about the value of its work and its support
ReplyDelete