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Geneva, 10 January 2013 - In its first ever Multilateral Organisation Performance Assessment Network (MOPAN) review the GAVI Alliance has been commended for its effectiveness in increasing access to immunisation and for its focus on results.
Among the Alliance’s strengths, the review lists financial management, accountability checks, country ownership support and relationship management. GAVI was rated adequate, strong or above for 95% of the key performance indicators as a result of the document review.
The review also highlighted areas where performance could be improved, such as in its strategic management, its use of indicators to measure progress towards Paris Declaration Commitments, the management practices used in its budgeting process and its guidelines on evaluation coverage.
MOPAN is a network of 17 donor countries, representing the majority of worldwide Overseas Development Assistance (ODA), which rates the effectiveness of multilateral organisations. MOPAN members share information, carry out joint assessments and draw on each other’s expertise in evaluation.
MOPAN assessments provide an important snapshot of an organisation’s institutional effectiveness from a strategic, operational, relationship and knowledge management perspective. The assessment relies on perception-based surveys of in-country partners, peer organisations and donors, as well as an in-depth document review.
First assessment of a global fund by the MOPAN
In addition to being the first MOPAN assessment of GAVI, this was also MOPAN’s first assessment of a global fund. This was led by the governments of France, Spain and Sweden.
To serve as a basis for the report, country-level surveys were undertaken in 15 GAVI-eligible countries, including Bangladesh, Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Georgia, Ghana, Honduras, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Rwanda, the United Republic of Tanzania, the Republic of Yemen and Zimbabwe.
The MOPAN assessment “recognised GAVI’s mandate to save children’s lives and protect people’s health by increasing access to immunisation as one of the organisation’s main strengths” and “commended GAVI’s mandate as a public-private partnership that brings together a variety of actors from developed and developing countries and from the public and private sectors.”
The MOPAN report rated GAVI as adequate, strong or above for all the key performance indicators (KPIs) of the survey, demonstrating a strong level of confidence in GAVI’s performance among its stakeholders during its first 12 years of operations. The good alignment between the perception survey and the desk review confirms that GAVI does what it says it does.
The assessment follows three similar reviews by the Australian, Swedish and United Kingdom governments which all awarded GAVI top marks for the critical role it plays in saving lives.
Findings
According to the 2012 MOPAN assessment, “GAVI is strongly promoting a corporate focus on the achievement of results”.
“The strengthening of its financial management and accountability systems [was] found to be its strongest operational management area,” said the report. “GAVI has continued to promote the transparency of its decisions, including its resource allocation, through consultation mechanisms and dialogue with its partners, wide dissemination of its key documentation, and the establishment of independent mechanisms.”
“Relationship management is one of GAVI’s strengths. GAVI’s support of country ownership and its alignment and harmonisation of arrangements and procedures with partners were highly appreciated by survey respondents, who consider that GAVI support is aligned with national priorities and that GAVI’s procedures, such as funding application and reporting requirements, take into account local conditions and capacities.”
GAVI Alliance on the right track
The 2012 MOPAN assessment also found that GAVI is holding its own and making progress to become an increasingly effective organisation.
“This is demonstrated by the largely positive views provided by stakeholders, the result of its last pledging conference in which pledges exceeded the target, and by the increasing country demand for GAVI’s support,” it said.
“The outcome of this assessment is inspiring to all of us involved in the work of the GAVI Alliance,” said Dagfinn Høybråten, Chair of the GAVI Alliance Board. “The GAVI Board is grateful to the MOPAN members not only for this thorough review of our institutional performance, but also for the support and vision of its members in ODA.”
“Joint assessments such as this play a crucial role for organisations like GAVI,” said Dr Seth Berkley, Chief Executive Officer at the GAVI Alliance. “This is particularly the case when it comes to securing funding because it helps to meet their external evaluation requirements and helps to foster donor confidence. But as encouraging as these results are, we also note that this assessment has highlighted areas where we could do more to improve our performance. GAVI is a learning organisation and so will continue to strive to improve its model further, through continued dialogue we will work with MOPAN to try to further empower developing countries through immunisation.”
MOPAN members represent 73% of GAVI funding in the 2011-2015 cycle, with 13 of the 17 MOPAN donors funding immunisation programmes in low-income countries through the GAVI Alliance.