Genesis assists in forecasting resources needed for HIV and TB plan

The Mpumalanga Provincial Implementation Plan for HIV, TB and STIs (PIP) is a five-year plan that presents a blueprint for action at provincial and district levels and seeks to operationalise the strategic directions that have been set by the national government to achieve its goals.

Genesis was appointed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) to provide technical assistance to the Mpumalanga Provincial AIDS Council (PCA) in costing the interventions in the plan and forecasting the financial resource needs over the five-year period.

Importantly, the PCA also required assistance in understanding where there may be funding shortfalls at the intervention level and where there may be vulnerabilities to external funding partners shifting their funding to other priorities. In response, Genesis also undertook a detailed financial resource mapping exercise to present how much funding was currently being allocated by government departments and donors and into which interventions and sub-population groups these funds were being invested in.

The costing and resource needs estimates, and associated insights generated by Genesis, improved the government planner and policy maker’s understanding of the total costs of interventions and how funding allocations were being prioritised across interventions.

The resource mapping and resource needs analyses demonstrated that although most interventions were sufficiently funded, there was reliance on external funding for critical HIV interventions for key populations and vulnerable populations such as adolescent girls in districts with high rates of new infections. The analyses also demonstrated that co-ordination of funding for HIV and TB programmes between government and external partners at the provincial and district levels was not optimal.

According to representatives of the Mpumalanga PCA secretariat, the information and analysis generated by the technical exercises enabled the secretariat to plan and negotiate with external partners from a position of greater strength. It also enabled the secretariat to carry out, with greater confidence and effectiveness, its financial performance monitoring and oversight mandate over departments and non-government agencies.