Global Fund Round 8 opens new opportunities for civil society to help scale up the response to HIV
03 March 2008
The latest call for proposals from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria provides a unique opportunity for civil society organisations to be more involved in grant implementation. Two new measures introduced for Round 8 have particular potential for civil society: the introduction of “dual-track financing” and “community systems strengthening”.
“The Global Fund has always been prepared to fund civil society and community systems strengthening,” said Anton Kerr, Senior Policy Advisor at the International HIV/AIDS Alliance. “However, some Country Coordinating Mechanisms that are responsible for submitting proposals to the Global Fund haven’t been making the most of the strengths of civil society.”
“The new dual track financing measure recognises civil society’s effectiveness in implementing Global Fund programmes, and enables civil society to play a greater role in the Country Coordinating Mechanisms and ensure that their voices are heard and included in the proposal development process. In almost every country the government dominates the Country Coordinating Mechanism and can resist the inclusion of civil society in the decision-making process. The Global Fund board has decided that stronger measures must be taken at a country level to ensure that proposals submitted to them for funding are far more inclusive,” said Javier Hourcade Bellocq, Global Fund board member representing affected communities.
Dual track financing means that Country Coordinating Mechanisms will be asked to nominate two principal recipients for Global Fund grants – one from government, and one non-government. This is the strongest message yet that the Global Fund board values the contribution of civil society and wants to increase support to civil society in the response to HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.
In addition to recognising the contribution that civil society has made to grant implementation, the Global Fund also recognises the importance of strengthening civil society to scale up national responses. This is where community systems strengthening comes in, and includes all activities that better equip civil society to play its role, such as training and technical support, capacity building for community-based organisations, supporting the work of key population networks, supporting the work of those most marginalised by HIV, creating an enabling environment through improved policy, advocacy and programme work and developing collaboration between stakeholders.
“It’s important that everyone understands just how broad community systems strengthening is,” adds Anton Kerr. “It’s a measure for strengthening the vital role civil society plays in scaling up national responses. We would encourage civil society to help Country Coordinating Mechanisms understand civil society needs by presenting self-assessments of their capacity needs to the Country Coordinating Mechanisms. The Global Fund board clearly wants to see this capacity building well-funded in grants that can last a minimum of five years”
The Alliance has a number of toolkits that can help civil society organisations to analyse their organisational and technical capacity to respond to HIV:
- CBO capacity analysis: a toolkit for assessing and building capacities for high quality responses to HIV
- NGO capacity analysis: a toolkit for assessing and building capacities for high quality responses to HIV
- Intermediary organisations capacity analysis: a toolkit for assessing and building capacities for high quality responses to HIV
- Network capacity analysis: rapid assessment guide
- Network capacity analysis: workshop facilitation guide.
Further resources can also be found on www.ngosupport.net.
