New representatives selected to sit on the regional coordinating mechanism

The Guyana Global Fund-Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM) on Monday held its first meeting for the year 2018 which saw two new representatives being elected.

The meeting which was held in the boardroom of the Education Ministry saw Alex Foster and Dr Nadia Liu being officially elected.
The CCM organisation is responsible for overseeing Global Fund-funded projects in the Caribbean. The meeting was chaired by Education Minister Nicolette Henry who is the elected chair of Guyana’s CCM.
However, the main focus of the meeting was to give representatives from the Public Health Ministry the opportunity to inform the organisation’s members on the programmatic performance of the Tuberculosis (TB), Malaria and HIV programmes.
In addition, the CCM Oversight Committee Visits Report for 2017 was presented.
The CCM has already held three stakeholder consultations referred to as ‘Country Dialogues’, where the principal recipient, the Public Health Ministry explains the key findings of the assessment to inform programme continuation.
The CCM members and alternates were also given a preview of the over-side report for the period January-June 2017. This report was presented by Dr Martin Odiit, UNAIDS Country Representative for Guyana and Suriname.
Dr Odiit recognised that Guyana is showing great progress against HIV, with gradually increasing coverage of people receiving antiretroviral treatment.
“Over the years, Guyana has reported a decline in TB cases. However, HIV/TB co-infection still remains a challenge in the country. Malaria is endemic in Guyana, particularly in remote regions,” he said.
The main purpose of the oversight was to ascertain the status and functioning of the Global Fund grants from January to June 2017 in the three programme areas, that is, “adequate and accessible medical services and facilities.”
Dr Odiit explained that the Oversight requires the CCM to understand how the grants are working, follow progress and challenges, and make recommendations to the PR on improving performance. Additionally, oversight is one type of monitoring, focused on governance.
The investment to date from the Global Fund stands at US$47,115,561; and the running Global Fund grants during 2017 were HIV (2015 – 2017), TB and Malaria (2016 – 2018).