Organisational change creates new focus for Secretariat

30 January 2008

A new structure, designed to help the Alliance deliver on its ambitious new strategic framework, has been implemented at the Alliance Secretariat in Brighton, UK, from 1 February 2008. This follows a significant organisational review of the Secretariat undertaken over the past few months.

Key drivers behind the organisational review included:

  • The desire to provide technical support closer to the point of need through regional technical support hubs rather than administering provision through Brighton
  • The need to scale up our programmes and coverage – and incorporate key new functions for the Secretariat – without expanding the number of Brighton-based staff
  • The need to adapt to changes in the external environment – particularly around funding, as more donors start to send funds directly to the relevant country rather than through the Secretariat

The new structure

To provide more focus, each department in the new structure now has a clear audience with which they will primarily interface.

For Field Programmes the primary interface is the linking organisations and country offices in the regions. The department works across programme management and technical co-operation, including Global Fund grant support and the co-ordination of the new technical support hubs in the field.

The new External Relations department’s primary interface is with the international community. It includes the Resource Mobilisation and Communications teams as well as a new HIV Best Practice team. This team will provide global HIV leadership in the following areas across the Alliance:

  • Health services
  • Drug use
  • Human rights
  • Sexual reproductive health (including mother to child transmission)
  • Children and impact mitigation

The primary interface of the Corporate Services department is the Secretariat itself. The department will look after financial accounting, financial reporting, information technology, human resources, administration, and legal, risk and compliance issues. It also includes a new Private Sector Partnerships team which will focus on leveraging resources from within academia and the private sector, as well as taking forward the ongoing learning and development agenda.

The final headcount employed at the Secretariat in Brighton is now 121 full time equivalents (FTEs) down from 135 FTEs prior to the reorganisation. The new structure results in annual financial savings of approximately $1million.

On-going communication

Over the next few months we will publish interviews in The Loop with members of some of the new teams and departments – looking at how their roles and responsibilities support the achievement of the Alliance’s new strategic goals.