Conduct the Global Fund S 2015 Strategic Review

REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL

RFP No. TGF-14-062

CONDUCT THE GLOBAL FUND’S 2015 STRATEGIC REVIEW

Issue Date: 30 September 2014

RFP Closing Date: 31 October 2014

RFP Closing Time: 12 Noon, Geneva Time

The Global Fund invites potential suppliers to submit proposals to conduct the mid-term review of the Implementation of the 2012 – 2016 Strategy and to assess impact made against the three diseases. This consolidated effort is termed as the “Strategic Review 2015”.

The Strategic Review 2015 will be based principally on a critical evaluation of existing data and information sources. The Strategic Review aims at producing a concise report containing a high-level synthesis and ‘meta-review’, with the Board as the primary audience.

The purpose of this Request for Proposal (RFP) is to select a supplier offering the best value to the Global Fund in terms of both technical and cost factors.

The services to be provided are fully described in the Statement of Work in Attachment A.

The Global Fund will evaluate all proposals received in response to this RFP in accordance with the Evaluation Criteria in Attachment B.

The Global Fund wishes to stress that an objective of this process is to provide a rigorous and comprehensive review within the confines of a competitive commercial environment. Therefore, we encourage the proposals to provide their best offer and to propose innovative methods, outlining their advantages and disadvantages, to the Global Fund.

This RFP shall not be construed as a contract or a commitment of any kind. This RFP in no way obligates the Global Fund to award a contract, nor does it commit the Global Fund to pay any cost incurred in the preparation and submission of the proposal(s).

The Global Fund Standard Terms and Conditions form an integral part of this RFP and will be included in any contract resulting from this solicitation. Submitting a proposal in response to this RFP constitutes acceptance of these terms and conditions, found at this link on the Global Fund website:

To be eligible as a supplier with the Global Fund, any organization or individual must comply with the Policy on Ethics and Conflicts of Interest for Global Fund Institutions and the Supplier Code of Conduct. Both are located on the Global Fund website at the following link:

Please submit your proposal in accordance with the instructions given below, no later than the closing date and time, by email to:

• , and
• Orion Yeandel at: orion.yeandel@theglobalfund.org
  

ATTACHMENT A: STATEMENT OF WORK

I. BACKGROUND

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (“the Global Fund”) was established in January 2002 as a financial instrument, complementary to existing programmes addressing HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. The purpose of the Global Fund is to attract, manage and disburse additional resources through a new public-private partnership that will make a sustainable and significant contribution to the reduction of infections, illness and death, thereby mitigating the impact caused by HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in countries in need, and contributing to poverty reduction as part of the Millennium Development Goals.

The Global Fund bases its work on programmes that reflect national ownership and respect country partnership-led formulation and implementation processes. The Global Fund promotes partnerships among all relevant players within the country and across all sectors of society. It builds on existing coordination mechanisms, and promotes new and innovative partnerships. In addition, the Global Fund strengthens and reflects high-level, sustainable political involvement and commitment in making allocations of its resources.

The Global Fund supports existing and new innovative programmes both within and outside the health sector that promote public, private and nongovernmental efforts for scaling up the prevention, treatment, care and support to those that are directly affected.

The Global Fund is a non-profit foundation under Swiss Law and its headquarters are based in Geneva, Switzerland. The Fund is accountable to its Board, the highest decision making body, which consists of representatives of donors, recipient countries, civil society, the private sector and non-governmental organizations as well as other stakeholders from a broad range of interest groups and communities, including multi-lateral organizations.

The Global Fund's Secretariat is responsible for day-to-day operations, including mobilizing

resources from the public and private sectors, managing grants, providing financial, legal and administrative support, and reporting information on the Global Fund's activities to the Board and the public.

About 600 employees representing more than 100 nationalities work at the Secretariat's headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

The 2015 Strategic Review

In November 2011, the Board approved the Global Fund Strategy 2012-2016. The Strategy sets ambitious goals: to save 10 million lives and prevent 140-180 million new infections over the period 2012-2016, with accompanying disease-specific targets. Through the Strategy, the Global Fund committed to transform itself and shift to a new model of “investing for impact” through a set of five strategic objectives (“SO”):

• SO 1 - Invest more strategically;
• SO 2 – Evolve the funding model;
• SO 3 – Actively support success in grant implementation;
• SO 4 – Promote and protect human rights; and
• SO 5 – Sustain the gains, mobilize the resources.

Oversight for strategy implementation resides with the Board’s Strategy, Investment and Impact Committee (SIIC).

Under the SIIC’s guidance, the Global Fund Technical Evaluation Reference Group (TERG) is responsible for ensuring independent evaluation of the Global Fund business model, investments and impact. Accordingly, the TERG has developed plans to conduct an independent appraisal of progress towards the important commitments reflected in the Global Fund Strategy (2012-2016). In addition, the Global Fund Evaluation Strategy, approved in November 2011, also anticipated the conduct of a rigorous, country focused twelve-year evaluation of the Global Fund which included an assessment of impact against the three diseases.

Seeking to conduct these two distinct activities in an efficient and coordinated manner, the TERG has brought together the review of Strategy implementation and the assessment of impact into a consolidated effort termed the “Strategic Review 2015”.

II. PRINCIPLES OF THE 2015 STRATEGIC REVIEW

The Strategic Review 2015 builds on elements of the evaluation strategy which the TERG outlined as a system of on-going evaluative activity. The TERG outlined a set of five principles for conducting evaluations which are fully integrated in the design of the Strategic Review 2015. These principles include:

• a partner approach which builds on, collaborates and synchronizes evaluations with partners while maintaining rigor and objectivity;
• conduct of periodic evaluations on an on-going basis rather than large-scale one-off evaluations (“Five Year Evaluation is a poor substitute for five years of evaluations”);
• reliance on plausibility designs to the extent possible that provide evidence of program impact, positive and negative, built on agreed M&E results chains and taking into account non-program influences on outcomes;
• building on country platforms by use of national systems (e.g. disease program reviews) and strengthening of country M&E capacity; and
• a focus on practicality for grant management such that reviews provide a limited number of few, actionable practical recommendations.

III. EVALUATION OBJECTIVES

The 2015 Strategic Review has two overarching evaluation objectives:

IV. EVALUATION QUESTIONS

The evaluation questions for the Strategic Review 2015 have been defined through a consultative process and are approved by the SIIC.

Main objective 1: Review of progress in Strategy implementation

The strategy lists five strategic objectives against which its implementation will be assessed.[1] A total of 30 questions have been developed.[2] Some example questions are listed below; the full list of questions can be found in annex 1.

SO 1: What progress has the Global Fund made in investing more strategically?

For example:

• To what extent have investments focused on the highest-impact countries, interventions and populations?[3]
• To what extent has Strategy implementation facilitated a more strategic focus on health systems strengthening?

SO 2: What is the evidence to date that the rollout of the NFM is achieving its intended purpose compared to the Rounds-based system?

For example:

• Has the predictability of Global Fund resources improved? Both in terms of timing when funds can be accessed and in terms of the expected overall amount of resources?
• To what extent is the allocation model working as intended to re-align resources (e.g. over- and under-allocated countries)?

SO 3: How has the Global Fund worked to actively support success in grant implementation?

For example:

• To what extent has the Global Fund adopted a more risk-differentiated approach to grant management?
• What progress has been made in defining and incorporating value for money considerations into grant management?

SO 5: What progress has the Global Fund made to sustain the gains achieved and to further mobilize resources to expand those gains?

For example:

• To what extent have actual domestic resource contributions increased through the introduction of the New Funding Model?

Main objective 2: Assess progress in impact against the three diseases

The full list of questions for main objective 2 is provided below.

Strategic goal: Main question: Over the past ten to fourteen years, what progress is being made toward the Goals of saving 10 million lives and preventing 140-180 million new infections?

Impact questions:

• According to the best standard of evidence available (either adequacy or plausibility)[4], what progress is being made in impact on HIV?
• According to the best standard of evidence available (either adequacy or plausibility), what progress is being made in impact on TB?
• According to the best standard of evidence available (either adequacy or plausibility), what progress is being made in impact on malaria?

Overall sampling plan

For the impact component of the Strategic Review 2015, analyses will range from those Global Fund-supported countries that meet the criteria for inclusion in lives saved and infections averted modeling, to a small number of countries where enhanced national Program Reviews will provide more nuanced information on plausible program effects on impact.

For the components of the Strategic Review 2015 related to the implementation of the 2012 – 2016 Strategy, the focus will be on TERG priority countries, which include High Impact and additional countries[5]; however, samples of countries from all country bands may be informative and necessary. An important consideration will be those countries that have completed the process of developing and submitting Concept Notes under the new funding model.

V. Proposed APPROACH

The Strategic Review 2015 plans to employ a mixed-methods approach with elements of both quantitative and qualitative analysis. Methods primarily involve structured document review, analyses of existing data, on-line surveys and key informant interviews and focus group discussions. In line with the principle of “five years of evaluation rather than a five year evaluation”, the majority of sources are existing analytical materials or targeted augmentation of existing materials. The TERG has ascertained that the evaluation questions can be answered based on the analysis of existing information.

Therefore, the Strategic Review 2015 is essentially a meta-review of a wealth of existing materials including, but not limited to TERG-commissioned evaluations and thematic reviews, Secretariat information and tracking systems, TRP reviews, Office of Inspector General (OIG) materials, national disease Program Reviews, modelling and estimations work done collaboratively with partners as well as other partner agency and country-developed materials.

In other cases, source materials are expected to be available based on activities underway. In some cases, materials will need to be developed for the Strategic Review 2015. In sum, Secretariat information systems and materials are expected to provide much of the evidence base needed for the Strategic Review.

A detailed evaluation matrix has been prepared that identifies the following variables for each evaluation question: possible data sources, data collection techniques, quality assurance steps, respondents/sampling plan, responsible parties within the Secretariat and the timeline in which the data sources are planned to become available.

It may be useful for interested consultants to review the evaluation matrix in parallel with developing the proposal. To request a copy of the matrix, please send an email to .

Table 1: SR 2015 scope

VI. TIMEFRAME& DELIVERABLES

Timeframe

The Strategic Review consultants are expected to commence their work between mid-November and beginning of December 2014. The consultancy is expected to last for 35 weeks and will be finalized with the approval of the Strategic Review report at the October 2015 SIIC meeting.

Table 2: SR 2015 timeline

Deliverables

All deliverables listed above will be submitted to the TERG. The Global Fund’s internal Strategic Review Working Group will additionally review the submitted deliverables to ensure their relevance to the Global Fund. The Secretariat’s TERG Support team will be the day-to-day focal point for the consultant team.

The expected deliverables are as follows:

1. Inception report Due 13 January 2015

The consultant team shall deliver an inception report including data collection methods, analysis tools, synthesis methods as well as a communication plan.

1. Briefing on review of existing information and additional data collection Due 16 April 2015

The consultant team shall provide a briefing on the review of the existing data and the additional data collected.

1. Report on preliminary findings and initial recommendations

Due 21 May 2015

The consultant team shall submit its preliminary findings by evaluation question and initial recommendations for review prior to developing the synthesis report.[6]

1. Draft Strategic Review 2015 synthesis report Due 09 July 2015

The consultant team shall submit a draft SR 2015 synthesis report for review and comments. The proposed report structure is outlined below.

1. Finalize Strategic Review 2015 synthesis report Due 15 September 2014

• Following a series of revisions and approval at the September TERG meeting, the consultant team shall deliver a final synthesis report and dissemination materials in time for the October SIIC for approval.

In addition, the consultant team is expected to provide bi-weekly updates.

VII. Consultant team requirements

The 2015 Strategic Review includes a broad range of questions and will require a range of skills within but also beyond public health. Interested companies should prepare a proposal covering both main objective 1 and 2 of the Strategic Review.

The TERG would like to encourage proposals that are innovative in terms of team composition, team size and work methods. As a starting point however, it is envisioned that the Review will at a minimum require the skills and qualifications described below:

Team leadership:

• Advanced specialist skills with 15+ years’ of organizational development and result-oriented management experience, preferably in the field of public health;

• Extensive experience in the evaluation of large-scale international programs;
• Proven experience with oversight bodies, senior-level managers, and/or a broad range of stakeholders in evaluation agenda-setting, decision-making and approval processes; and
• Proven leadership ability and proven ability to manage teams with diverse skills sets in the development and timely delivery of high-quality products.

Specialized technical expertise in the following areas:

• Advanced specialist skills (15+ years) in epidemiology and impact assessment based either primary or secondary data analyses;
• Advanced specialist skills in economics; strategic management and resource allocation for large-scale development programs;
• In-depth knowledge of or prior work experience with the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria;
• Specialist skills with experience in structured synthesis of information from a broad range of source materials; and
• Specialist skills in the conduct of multi-country program evaluations on behalf of international agencies.

All Team members must have proven ability to work with others in the development and timely delivery of high-quality deliverables. In addition to the skills and qualifications identified above, all members of the team should have advanced university degrees and general or advanced professional proficiency in English and one additional language.

The consultancy can be conducted remotely with occasional travel to Geneva and five to six field visits to implementing countries. An induction period at the Global Fund offices for one to two weeks at the beginning of December is recommended. The Global Fund will be able to support visa applications for this trip if required.