W4GF Advocacy Brief: Meaningful Engagement of Women in the Global Fund’s Funding Model: Recommendations from Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe

Many countries will submit concept notes to the Global Fund for consideration in the next allocation cycle under the new Global Fund Strategy 2017 – 2022. Recognising the opportunity to ensure appropriate and focused programming for women and girls highly vulnerable to HIV, TB and malaria including women from key populations, Women4GlobalFund (W4GF) conducted interviews of women and gender advocates in three countries – Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe – to identify how the Global Fund’s funding model can be further strengthened to facilitate more meaningful participation.

This full advocacy brief available here expands on the points below which summarise key recommendations from these interviews in the areas of country dialogue processes, implementation and monitoring.

As the Global Fund moves forward with the operationalisation of the new 2017 – 2022 Strategy we call on the Global Fund and technical partners to address the following recommendations immediately to ensure more meaningful engagement of women in all their diversity working on HIV, TB and malaria.

  1. Strengthen guidance on the meaningful engagement: The Global Fund must revise and strengthen its guidance specifically on how countries should engage women in all their diversity at all stages of the funding model to ensure effective Global Fund country processes;
  2. Sustain support for the Global Fund’s Community, Rights and Gender (CRG) Special Initiatives, such as the regional coordination and communications platforms; and expanding support to the Robert Carr Civil Society Networks Fund (RCNF);
  3. Continue to build knowledge and understanding of gender transformative programming: The Global Fund and partners must facilitate knowledge-building around gender linked to human rights;
  4. Bolster support for women in all their diversity on Country Coordinating Mechanisms (CCMs) and beyond through providing technical and financial resources to meaningfully participate in National Strategic Plan (NSP) development, CCMs and Global Fund processes – including for capacity development and advocacy;
  5. Support capacity building of women to monitor implementation by providing funding for monitoring efforts, data collection guidance documents and tools. The Global Fund and partners must make certain countries collect disaggregated data that speaks to the specific issues that women face;
  6. Ensure that all CCMs consistently follow the CCM eligibility criteria; to ensure CCMs are accountable to civil society and beneficiaries of Global Fund supported programmes; and
  7. Channel greater funds for civil society implementation: The Global Fund must refocus and promote funding for community-based responses, community systems strengthening, and rights-based programming.
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