Following the workshop held on “Strengthening and Integrating TB & Malaria within the HIV Gender Response” in Harare, Zimbabwe from 6 – 8 December 2015, follow up with participants have resulted in inspiring personal commitments and actions at the country level.
W4GF shares the W4GF workshop report from the report that highlights that advocacy messages need to demand that gender and women advocates are involved at every level and at every stage of the national strategic planning and Global Fund processes, and while experiences of successful engagement in the funding model during country level processes, the majority voiced that they:
- still lack the recognition by governments and donors of the importance of their involvement;
- lack the funding, capacity and skills to meaningful participate consistently;
- have difficulties in keeping up with the ever-changing Global Fund structures, process and acronyms; and
- face frustration over and over again by being stigmatised and discriminated against, and by the poor quality, inaccessibility, and in some cases, the complete absence of service that they and their communities need.
The workshop was held at a critical juncture, as the corporate Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) against the new Global Fund Strategic Framework 2017 – 2022 are being developed. For the first time ever in the Global Fund Strategy, Gender Equality is highlighted in Strategic Objective 3 – “Promote and Protect Human Rights and Gender Equality”, signalling the importance of, and greater attention to gender by the Global Fund in the future. The focus on gender equality is critical to the Global Fund achieving its new Strategy presents an opportunity for increased debate, review and exploration on how to best implement gender-sensitive and -transformative programming. The next six years presents an opportunity to learn, document, and challenge existing HIV, TB and malaria gender programming to ensure that the needs of women in all their diversity are addressed.
This workshop was organised by the W4GF Secretariat with support from the Communities Delegation to the Board of the Global Fund, ViiV Healthcare, Stop TB Partnership, and the Global Fund Secretariat. The workshop was hosted by Pangaea Zimbabwe AIDS Trust.