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August 2, 2010
Request for Proposal: Evaluation of the International Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm), GAVI Alliance
The GAVI Alliance Secretariat is commissioning this Evaluation at the request of the International Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm) Company Board. The objective of this Evaluation is to assess the extent to which the IFFIm has been an effective financing mechanism to raise money for immunisation and health systems in GAVI eligible countries.
Background and context for this consultancy
The GAVI Alliance was launched in 2000 to increase immunisation coverage and reverse widening global disparities in access to vaccines. Governments in donor and developing countries, UNICEF, WHO, the World Bank, civil society, foundations, vaccine manufacturers, and research and technical institutions work together as partners in GAVI Alliance to achieve common goals, in recognition that only through a strong and united effort can higher levels of support for global immunisation be generated.
The GAVI Alliance mission is to save children’s lives and protect people’s health by increasing access to immunisation in poor countries. The GAVI Alliance Strategy positions GAVI’s work within the broader context of child survival and the Millennium Development Goals. The Alliance also makes a major contribution to meeting global goals outlined in the WHO/UNICEF Global Immunisation Vision and Strategy (GIVS) by supporting immunisation programmes and health systems in the world’s poorest countries.
The GAVI Alliance’s financial resources come from governmental and private sector contributions and innovative financing mechanisms. The IFFIm Company (“IFFIm”), which was established in 2005, is central to the GAVI Alliance’s resource mobilisation. Since its inaugural benchmark issue in November 2006, it has raised $2.5 billion in the bond markets to fund the GAVI Alliance’s programmes. IFFIm enables the combination of two key funding characteristics that are not commonly available with traditional international development funding mechanisms: (a) the provision of long-range, multi-year income pledges; and (b) access to capital markets when funding is needed for programmes.
Eight governments have to date pledged contributions of more than US$ 5 billion to the IFFIm over a course of 20 years. Each government has committed to provide legally binding and irrevocable scheduled grant payments to IFFIm over this period. IFFIm uses the grant payments to pay the principal and interest on its bonds.
IFFIm converts, via the bond markets, the long-term government pledges into more immediately available cash resources to support the GAVI Alliance’s mission. In terms of its legal status, IFFIm is a multilateral development institution, established as a charity registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales (UK Charity Commission). IFFIm’s primary purpose is to provide funding for the immunisation programmes and/or programmes of vaccine procurement of the GAVI Alliance in 70 of the poorest countries in the world by making grants to the GAVI Fund Affiliate (GFA), a separate charity registered with the UK Charity Commission.
Very importantly, the GAVI Alliance and other IFFIm stakeholders are now beginning seriously to contemplate the possibility of expanding, extending or replicating IFFIm. This thinking is based not only on the results of IFFIm to date, but also on the observation that a securitisation vehicle such as IFFIm enables the simultaneous satisfaction of two important criteria:
- The equilibration of the timing and volume of demand for and supply of funds. (The supply is determined by donors’ fiscal abilities, the demand by when vaccines are needed.)
- The ability to plan multiple years into the future.
This thinking makes it crucial to understand the lessons of experience, so that the learning can be applied in a practical way.
Please consult the IFFIm http://www.iff-immunisation.org/index.html
and GAVI Alliance Evaluation scope and questions This evaluation will assess the extent to which IFFIm is an effective
and efficient instrument to attract long-term, predictable donor funds
and to frontload money to finance GAVI Alliance support for immunisation
and health systems. The evaluation will also assess the extent to which
IFFIm has contributed to enhancing GAVI’s impact on immunisation and
health. Proposal requirements Following the issuance of the RFP, all interested contractors are
invited to submit a proposal which describes: Deliverables Expected deliverables Timeline Note: All ‘Event Dates’ shall be executed by 5PM CET. Submission of clarification questions and Intent to Participate Letter: 05 July 2010 For more detailed information please follow the link to the full
RFP
GAVI response to questions: 12 July 2010
Submission of proposals: 2 August 2010
Contracting the selected firm: Early September 2010
Monthly report: End of each month
Submission of draft report: Early January 2011
Submission of final report: Mid February 2011
