The Burma/Myanmar authorities, the broader stakeholder community, and international donors agree that HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria require significant international humanitarian assistance. The Three Diseases Fund was established in 2006, in close consultation with the Burma/Myanmar authorities and the broader stakeholder community, by a group of concerned donors (Australia, the European Commission, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom) to support a countrywide programme of activities to reduce transmission and enhance provision of treatment and care for HIV and AIDS, TB and malaria for the most-in-need populations.
The 3DF will work with a range of Implementing Partners, including international and local non government organisations (INGOs and NGOs), the United Nations (UN), the Ministry of Health (through dialogue at the central level and support for services provided at the township level) and other local civilian administrations to address the human suffering caused by HIV and AIDS, TB and malaria.
Key Outcomes
The 3DF aims to:
• reduce transmission and enhance provision of treatment and care for HIV and AIDS affected persons;
• reduce the morbidity, mortality and transmission of TB, including among people living with HIV and AIDS, while simultaneously preventing the further emergence of drug-resistant forms of TB;
• reduce malaria morbidity;
• strengthen the capacity of local communities and the organisations that represent them to respond to the health challenges they face.
Principles
A supportive operating environment is essential to ensure that 3DF provides the greatest possible benefits to people at highest risk and vulnerability and with the greatest needs. For this reason, the donors and the Burma/Myanmar authorities have committed to internationally endorsed principles for the provision of humanitarian assistance.
3DF's Effective Operations Policy reflects international best practice, with particular emphasis on the following principles:
Following a humanitarian approach
• Humanitarian Imperative - suffering must be addressed wherever it is found, with particular attention to the most vulnerable in the population.
• Impartiality - relief of suffering must be guided solely by needs and priority given to the most urgent cases of distress, without discrimination between or within affected populations.
• Gender equality – women and men will be afforded equal status as decision makers and beneficiaries in the programme.
• Access - to be effective, humanitarian personnel must be provided with timely and unconditional access to those in need.
International best practice for strategic development
• Participation and accountability - ensure, to the greatest possible extent and inclusive of gender and ethnicity, the involvement of beneficiaries in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of humanitarian response.
• Doing no harm – ensure that humanitarian aid does not reinforce, exacerbate or prolong conflict, discourage self-reliance or entrench gender inequality.
• Fostering Capacity - while addressing major and immediate health concerns, strengthen the capacity of affected groups, local communities and local authorities to respond to broader development challenges in a sustainable way.
Public Information
• Public Information – to facilitate public understanding of the Fund and its activities, both within Burma/Myanmar and internationally, and to provide public engagement in programme planning, monitoring and evaluation.
• Transparency and Accountability – the 3DF is entrusted with public funds and is directly accountable to its donor countries, to their parliaments, taxpayers and the at risk population of Burma/Myanmar.
• Financial probity - the Fund Manager (UNOPS) is accountable for financial probity of the Fund and will provide regular reports to the Fund Board, including an audited annual financial reporting. The 3DF Donor Consortium, Board and Fund Manager adheres to a zero tolerance policy on all aspects of fraud and corruption. The 3DF Manager will develop clear guidelines on this aspect of the 3DF’s operation.
How will this be achieved?
3DF makes the following commitments
Following a humanitarian approach:
• Respect for the humanitarian principles: the 3DF will use the internationally agreed humanitarian principles as the basis for programme design assigning responsibility for monitoring their implementation to the 3DF Board.
• Indicators: the 3DF Manager will create a list of indicators for access and equity (including Gender), monitor these (on the basis of reports received from stakeholders), and report back on findings to the 3DF Board.
International best practice for strategic development
• Fostering Capacity – the 3DF will seek to ensure that the programmes it supports are inclusive, promoting collaboration of people from different backgrounds to address health issues, and facilitating communication and cooperation both at the local level and the national level.
• Responsible development - the 3DF Board will decide in which cases and areas further assessment is required, to ensure that maximum benefit and no harm is done in 3DF supported projects.
• Supporting national efforts – the 3DF will support efforts to strengthen the capacity of local communities and the organisations that represent them to respond to the health challenges that they face.
• Participation and accountability – international experience shows that development projects are most effective when they create opportunities for dialogue. The 3DF will seek to support mechanisms for broad-based decision making, implementation and monitoring that create more opportunities for participation of and accountability to local communities.
• Equity – the 3DF will support an equitable distribution of service delivery and access to health, by improving understanding of differences in needs (including on the basis of gender) and by working to expand the reach of the 3DF to get support for people who need assistance.
Public Information
The 3DF will provide timely and regular access to relevant information to all stakeholders, civil society organisations, other parties involved, and to the general public. This will primarily be done through the website although media channels will also be used whenever appropriate, in-country as well as within the region and in donor countries.
This will include where practicable:
• Strategy and policies of 3DF. The 3DF will publish on its website strategy and policy documents, including project documentation, national strategies, operating plans and Board policy documents.
• Implementation procedural information. The 3DF will publish on its website implementation procedural information - including operational guidelines, procurement plans and activities. Procurement notices and invitations to bid will be published on the website.
• Mechanisms for public engagement. The 3DF will establish mechanisms for public engagement. This will include a mechanism for community feedback that will enable individuals to bring issues to the attention of 3DF Board. The details of this mechanism will be defined and published on the website before the end of 2007. It will also include public consultation meetings with a wide range of stakeholders. An Annual 3DF Review meeting, with key stakeholder groups, will be held in Burma/Myanmar.
• Monitoring, Evaluation and Audit. Mid and end-term reviews of the 3DF will be conducted by internationally recognised external evaluators. The 3DF will publish on its website all public monitoring and evaluation reports. Annual audit reports (financial and technical) will be available for public scrutiny once approved.
• Board and donor transparency. The 3DF will publish a schedule of board meetings and decisions of 3DF Board meetings on the website; The 3DF Donor Consortium will produce a statement following its annual meeting, (held concurrently with the Annual 3DF Review meeting) which will be published on the 3DF website.
• Public communication. Visibility of the Fund will be reflected through use of 3DF logo and other means by Implementing Partners to acknowledge support for delivery of services, drugs and supplies. The 3DF will communicate its achievements and experiences. The 3DF will translate selected 3DF documents into the Burmese language.
Mechanisms for monitoring the outcomes against principles
The 3DF Fund Manager will create a list of key indicators to monitor progress against these principles (policy), and will report back on findings to the 3DF Board. The 3DF Fund Board will monitor the implementation of this policy on an annual basis using these indicators and will report on implementation to the Donor Consortium.
Update status: 10 September 2008 (revised)
ANNEX
Guiding principles for the provision of humanitarian assistance
I . Objectives and focus of humanitarian assistance
1. Human suffering should be addressed wherever it is found, with particular attention to the most vulnerable in the population, such as children, women and elderly. The dignity and rights of all must be respected and protected.
2. Humanitarian assistance is to be provided without engaging in hostilities or taking sides in controversies of a political, religious or ideological nature. There will be no weapons or armed personnel on the premises or transportation facilities of humanitarian organizations.
3. Humanitarian assistance is to be provided irrespective of ethnic origin, social status, gender, nationality, political opinions, race or religion. Relief of suffering must be guided solely by needs and priority is to be given to the most urgent cases of distress.
4. Humanitarian assistance aims to help reduce poverty, meet basic needs and enable communities to become more self sufficient, which will require any underlying gender inequality to be addressed.
5. Humanitarian activities are guided by international humanitarian law and human rights and by the mandates given by international instruments to the various humanitarian organizations.
II. Management and operational principles
6. Humanitarian actors respect the culture, structures and customs of the communities where humanitarian programmes are carried out. Where possible and to the extent feasible, ways shall be found to involve the intended beneficiaries of humanitarian assistance and/or local personnel in the design, management and implementation of assistance programmes.
7. Humanitarian agencies hold themselves accountable to those they seek to assist and will be accountable for their actions to the government, and for their use of resources, to those who provide them. Humanitarian actors retain responsibility to manage human, financial and material resources for their activities. Management of these resources follows transparent, independent, open, competitive processes. Specifically, staff are recruited on the basis of suitability and qualifications for the job.
8. Equipment, supplies and facilities of humanitarian actors are not to be used for purposes other than those stated in programme objectives. Vehicles of humanitarian agencies are not to be used to transport persons or goods that have no direct connection with assistance programmes.
9. Humanitarian assistance is only of value if delivered in a timely fashion. Effective humanitarian operations require easy, sustained access for humanitarian personnel participating in relief activities to deliver, monitor and assess humanitarian aid, enabling them to reach targeted members of the population in need of assistance.
