Comments on: U.S. AIDS funding disbursement gap http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/politicshiv/2007/09/02/us-aids-funding-disbursement-gap/ Just what it says Sat, 28 Nov 2009 13:28:55 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: joshbusby http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/politicshiv/2007/09/02/us-aids-funding-disbursement-gap/comment-page-1/#comment-133 joshbusby Thu, 27 Sep 2007 03:55:04 +0000 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/politicshiv/2007/09/02/us-aids-funding-disbursement-gap/#comment-133 Kim Yi Dionne from UCLA e-mailed me this comment about disbursement, "in reading a footnote in Helen Epstein's book, I followed a lead to "PEPFAR Watch" from the Center for Health and Gender Equity page. PEPFAR Watch has PDF posts of the Inspector General's audits of progress in implementing PEPFAR. Here's a link: http://www.pepfarwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=103 I've only managed to read through the Tanzania report, so my thoughts will be limited to what I saw there. In TZ in 2005, there were significant funding delays which impeded program implementation. The Inspector General found the causes of the delays to be (1) the Global AIDS Coordinator - he wanted the TZ proposal to have "more clarity" because it was somewhat vague; (2) bureaucratic timeframes - something about the SOAG not being sent to the government until the funds were ready and then having to navigate through Min of Health then Min of Finance; and (3) USAID bureacratic/logistical hurdle - the regional contracting officer wasn't in TZ once the funds were finally available, but was instead in Kenya. However, this would only explain the delay in 2005. The report stated that all of the aforementioned hurdles were expected to not be a problem in 2006 (but as we know, 2006 also saw a disbursement gap). I guess the short of it is, I don't have a good answer, but I have a muddled one for 2005. I imagine there were similar hang-ups in 2006. Essentially, it's a bureaucratic politics problem. Kim Yi Dionne from UCLA e-mailed me this comment about disbursement, “in reading a footnote in Helen Epstein’s book, I followed a lead to “PEPFAR Watch” from the Center for Health and Gender Equity page. PEPFAR Watch has PDF posts of the Inspector General’s audits of progress in implementing PEPFAR. Here’s a link:
http://www.pepfarwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=103

I’ve only managed to read through the Tanzania report, so my thoughts will be limited to what I saw there. In TZ in 2005, there were significant funding delays which impeded program implementation. The Inspector General found the causes of the delays to be (1) the Global AIDS Coordinator – he wanted the TZ proposal to have “more clarity” because it was somewhat vague; (2) bureaucratic timeframes – something about the SOAG not being sent to the government until the funds were ready and then having to navigate through Min of Health then Min of Finance; and (3) USAID bureacratic/logistical hurdle – the regional contracting officer wasn’t in TZ once the funds were finally available, but was instead in Kenya.

However, this would only explain the delay in 2005. The report stated that all of the aforementioned hurdles were expected to not be a problem in 2006 (but as we know, 2006 also saw a disbursement gap).

I guess the short of it is, I don’t have a good answer, but I have a muddled one for 2005. I imagine there were similar hang-ups in 2006. Essentially, it’s a bureaucratic politics problem.

]]>