Also available in: Español
Source: corresponsalesclave.org
By: Lídice López Tocón
After the Global Fund’s Seventh Replenishment raised US$15.7 billion, Cycle 7 funding has begun, giving countries access to new resources to respond to HIV, TB and malaria. The first Window for funding requests closed on March 21.
This new funding cycle paves the way to achieve the goals set out in the Global Fund’s new strategy by putting people and communities at the center of the response to end the three diseases.
Community engagement is so fundamental to the Global Fund’s strategy that the forms now require evidence of community engagement. Civil society in Venezuela, Paraguay, and Guatemala, among other countries in Latin America, are already completing needs identification in their responses to the epidemics so that they can engage in broad social dialogue to develop a grant to catalyze responses.
High Engagement, Minimum Expectations
While the Global Fund has promoted community engagement since its inception, there is an increasing emphasis on ensuring that all people affected by the diseases are truly involved in all processes.
The Community Engagement Minimum Expectations for the three phases of the grant cycle attempt to respond to evaluations showing that engagement declines as the grant cycle progresses. This measure intends to increase engagement during the request development and implementation oversight.
Today, the funding request development must include transparent and inclusive consultations with populations most impacted by HIV, TB and malaria. This process will result in a mandatory annex describing the whole process of consultation and discussion with communities.
To further their effective involvement in grant oversight, community and civil society representatives in the Country Coordinating Mechanisms are expected to have timely access to information on the status of grant negotiations and any changes to the grant.
Finally, community and civil society representatives on the CCM are expected to have timely access to information on program implementation.
Gender Matters
While in the case of HIV in Latin America, the epidemic mainly affects gay men and other men who have sex with men, as well as transgender women and female sex workers, gender inequality has generally worked against women in terms of the impact of tuberculosis and malaria.
For this reason, the Technical Review Panel will score the inclusion of gender-responsive programming, differentiated indicators, and sex- and gender-disaggregated data in the request, as well as a budget that addresses gender equality.
Other Key Points
Costing community interventions is key to achieving proper grassroots implementation. To this end, Global Fund partner Frontline AIDS developed a community intervention costing tool to be included in the grant. Although the tool is now available, few countries were able to use it in Window 1.
The Global Fund has also emphasized a harm reduction approach, not only in the context of injecting drug use but also for other drugs. However, this approach goes further, as it also tries to minimize the negative impact in terms of rights violations and hepatitis infection, among others.
The new funding cycle also emphasizes interventions that target key populations, prioritize areas most affected by epidemics, emphasize community leadership, address the cross-cutting nature of vulnerabilities, and ensure the safety and security of interventions and people.
As mentioned at the beginning of this note, the new cycle is an opportunity to reinvigorate the response to the three epidemics, which was disrupted in many Latin American countries by the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of its commitment to the new strategy and this new funding cycle, the Global Fund has organized several seminars, summaries of which can be found in our notes.