Project and Budget Formulation in Atlas

UNDP’s standard procedures as advised in UNDP Programme and Operations Policies and Procedures (POPP) - Project Design should be followed for Global Fund project and budget formulation. This includes guidance on how to ‘Formulate Programmes and Projects’, ‘Select Responsible Parties and Grantees’and ‘Appraise and Approve’.

It is important to remember that the term “Project” in UNDP policy represents the project document, previously known as an award in Atlas and the term “Output” is represented by a “Project” in Atlas (the budget is at the level of the Output). Therefore, there may be one Project (“Award” in Atlas) with different Outputs (“Projects” in Atlas). The financial control on budgets in Atlas (income, expenses, advances, etc.) is at the output level and NOT at the Project (Award) level.

Global Fund project/budget setup in Atlas should adhere to the following principles:

• Projects created in Atlas should conform to the standard structure that one Global Fund Grant Agreement corresponds to one Atlas Project with one Atlas Output.

• Country Offices (COs) should not create multiple outputs for one grant as this complicates cash management and cash reconciliation reports in Atlas. Only if the grant has an allocation from the Global fund for COVID-19 (C19RM) activities, can a second output be added within the existing project.

Practice Pointer

Atlas allows other donor funding, including UNDP core funding, to be combined with the Global Fund funding. However, it is NOT recommended to comingle multiple donor funding with the Global fund grant project due to various reporting and closure requirements specific to the Global Fund.

Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM) funding (Fund 30068 Donor 00327) should have a separate project and output from grant funding (Fund 30078 Donor 00327).

The proposal and project are created in Atlas Project Management Module (for guidance refer to Atlas Project Management Module User Guide) :

* UNDP as Principal Recipient (PR) assumes the role of Implementing Partner (Direct Implementation - DIM) and is reflected in Atlas, when creating the Proposal, Award, and Project in the “Institution ID” field (Institution ID - Atlas code: 99999).

* Where UNDP serves as Responsible Party, it should be reflected in the Implementing Agent field in Atlas (Implementing Agent - Atlas code: 001981).

When UNDP is the PR, COs use the established account codes in Atlas, which correspond to the categories typically used by the Global Fund to capture budgetary information in setting up the Budget.

Each Budget line in the Global Fund Detailed Budget will correspond to an Activity in Atlas for both project budgeting and transaction purposes.

Activity ID in Atlas should follow the budget line number in the GF Detailed Budget without any prefix or suffix (decimal numbers are not allowed). The only exception is the budget line dedicated to General Management Support (GMS) fees (Budget line 116 in the example below) where the Activity ID should be created as “GMS”.

Practice Pointer

* Each Sub-Recipient (SR) should have an Implementing Agent (IA) code. Please check whether an IA code exists in Atlas and if not, request an IA code using the form: “Request new implementing agency code” which has to be filled out, signed and then sent to UNAll portal.

* The activities for which SRs will be responsible, should be included as separate lines in the project budget. The Chart of Account for these lines should use the IA code for the relevant SR.

GMS Setup

UNDP’s indirect cost recovery known as GMS should be included in the project budget as a separate budget line.

GMS is earned ( or charged) on ‘earn as you go’ basis for the Global Fund project. The ‘earn-as-you-go’ method charges the GMS fee only when expenses are incurred based on actual expenses posted in general ledger.

For further guidance, refer to the Guidance Note on Atlas GMS Set-Up & GMS Reports available on the Office of Financial Management’s intranet and POPP Cost recovery.

The GMS setup for Global Fund projects should be:

* GMS calculation : Earn as you go

* Donor : 00327* and Fund: 30078 (or 30068 for CCM funding,)

* Rate: 7 percent and Effective date: grant start date or if applicable pre-allocation start date

* Distribution modality: GFATM Projects (2017)

*For Financing Agreements (FA) funded by Global Fund resources, use Fund 30085 and Donor code for the respective Government that UNDP signs the FA with.

Practice Pointer

The above procedures are only applicable for the Global Fund grants where UNDP is the Principal Recipient, Fund Administrator or supports the Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM). Furthermore, effective 1 November 2019, the same GMS rate and internal GMS distribution across UNDP units are applied to non-Principal Recipient (PR) financing agreements funded by Global Fund resources as those agreed for Global Fund grants where UNDP is the PR.