HIV and AIDS Implementing partners (IPs) convened on 26-27 March 2009 to jointly review progress for the last quarter of the 2008/09 financial year.

The workshop is a quarterly forum organized by the National AIDS Commission to bring together civil society organizations, line Ministries and private businesses which have received funding from NAC to report on their interventions.

In her official remarks, Ms.Thato Kherekhoa on behalf of the Chief Executive indicated that it was essential for implementing partners to report on their interventions, not only because the donor wants to know how disbursed funds have been utilized, but also because IPs need to review whether their interventions are being done according to submitted plans and budgets.

More importantly reports provided information on where Lesotho is in terms of scaling up to the response to HIV and AIDS.

She further said that bringing IPs together was important in the sense that organizations share experiences and challenges and as a result overlaps and gaps are identified and remedial action taken.

During progress reports by IPs, it emerged that organizations experienced challenges of expertise in project management, financial management and monitoring and evaluation, and requested technical assistance from NAC in this regard.

There was a general concern about delay in disbursements of funds which affected IPs implementation of their interventions.

In this regard IPs were advised to report on time to facilitate timely disbursement of funds. On the other hand NAC would review its disbursement procedures.

One of the issues that was raised by IPs was that their projects are usually one year projects, therefore it becomes difficult to plan on sustainable projects with the uncertainty of whether funding from NAC would be available for the following year.

The response on this issue was that NAC could not offer funding that covers more than one year because it is funded by the Government of Lesotho, and has to budget on a yearly basis like all Government Ministries. Similar to all Government structures, it also faces budget cuts.

The Internal Auditor, Mr. Seboko Posholi raised important issues regarding shortcomings of reports which sometimes lead to delay in disbursements and urged the IPs to improve on these weaknesses.
Other presentations made were on reporting guidelines which IPs should align themselves to when reporting both programmatically and financially, as well as procurement procedures to guide IPs on the correct procedures for acquiring services and equipment, which are in line with NAC’s approved procurement manual.

In providing the way forward, Mrs, Mampho Ntšekhe, Section Head - Grants Management Unit, noted concerns raised in the forum and promised to follow-up on them and also urged participants to comply with their contracts and approved budgets, as well as expedite on prevention interventions, especially in light of emerging issues from recent studies such as the Multiple and Concurrent Partnerships and Modes of Transmission.