GFA approach to quality assurance in the Fiscal Agent Project for The Global Fund in Nigeria

Posted on 26 Mar, 2018 by Anke Afflerbach

In January 2018, GFA conducted a three-day workshop in Abuja, Nigeria. Representatives of The Global Fund as well as the GFA PFM head of department, the HQ supervisory team in charge of Nigeria, and the Fiscal Agent’s international and national team members were present. The workshop’s objective was to review and discuss the results of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) Evaluation from September 2017.

The first day of the workshop covered the presentation and discussion of the OIG evaluation results. Measures of action addressing the OIG evaluation results were closely analyzed and jointly agreed upon. A major part of the workshop’s agenda consisted of the presentation and introduction of GFA’s quality assurance approach. In 2017, GFA developed an oversight protocol for the fiscal agent projects GFA is implementing for The Global Fund worldwide. The oversight protocol ensures that all aspects of the project implementation on all management levels are quality assured.

Fraud detection and prevention play a crucial role in our fiscal agents’ day-to-day work. Our fraud experts presented their activities and work, with the Principal Recipients (PR) and Sub-Recipients (SR) covering fraud assessments, training courses, fraud policy development and lessons learnt. Ethical standards and behavior are of upmost importance in our fiscal agents’ daily work with all stakeholders.  The Global Fund’s and GFA’s expectations of the Code of Conduct (CoC) and Conflict of Interest (CoI) policy were presented and discussed, concluding with a ceremonial signing ceremony. GFA’s in-house staff moderated the event, combining adult learning methodology and professional moderation techniques. The workshop moderation approach linked presentations with group work and team building activities. The feedback from all participants on this workshop design was very positive and an agreement was made to conduct annual workshops of this kind where technical updates will be jointly worked upon.