From the EECA Regional Platform established by the Global Fund
The Global Fund’s Community, Rights and Gender (CRG) Technical Assistance (TA) Program started it’s new phase of the implementation as a part of the Global Fund’s CRG Strategic Initiative.
You may find all relevant information about this short-term technical assistance program available at the new page at the Global Fund’s website following this link>>>.
Please, be informed that the CRG Department updated the list of CRG technical assistance providers for the 2021-2023 implementation period. Also, new CRG TA Request Form is available (the old one is not applicable anymore) as well as an example of the High-quality TA Request.
The CRG technical assistance is available in 3 main areas of work:
Situational analysis and needs assessments
Country dialogue
Supporting design and implementation arrangements.
CCM strengthening (e.g. training of CCM members in their roles and responsibilities);
Long-term capacity development of civil society networks and organizations (e.g. organizational development, support to become a Global Fund recipient);
Development of stand-alone tools that lack a focus on community engagement;
Funding request writing.
The short-term nature of technical assistance foresees that community experts can be deployed for approximately 30 days over a period of up to three months.
The Regional Platforms for Communication and Coordination are engaged in assisting the Global Fund to identify COVID-related risks, opportunities, disruptions, and innovations, specific to Global Fund-supported programs.
A systemized and regularized alert tool was developed for this purpose. Recognizing that in-country stakeholders already face many challenges and are overstretched at this time, the tool is designed to be as light as possible with the focus on critical-to-know information.
The key objectives of the monitoring approach are to:
Trigger certain actions by the Global Fund’s CRG Department, Global Fund Country Teams, other technical partners, etc. (depending on the issue);
Serve as an early warning system for the Global Fund to indicate things may be going off track so that stronger actions can be taken;
Identify innovative and successful community-led solutions in a timely manner, sharing these so that other countries may benefit from the ideas;
Allow the Global Fund to compare trends over time and across countries and regions;
Reduce the need for ad-hoc requests for information from the Global Fund; and
Provide communities with a formal communication channel to report the issues/innovations they are facing with HIV, TB and malaria programs amid the COVID pandemic
EECA Regional Platform has already received through this system an information from civil society representatives on a situation in a number of EECA countries and has provided the Global Fund with it.
If you are aware about any COVID-related issues which have impacted the work of the Global Fund supported HIV and TB programs in your country, please access the tool and report, following this link>>>.
The workshop “Transition from Global Fund support of HIV and TB programs to national funding: role, opportunities and priorities for civil society in Albania” took place in Tirana, the capital city of Albania, on 23 – 24 of October and gathered 29 participants including civil society representatives, CCM members, representatives of the Global Fund CRG Team and CCM Hub (online), experts from neighbouring countries and representatives of the governmental structures.
Albanian HIV and TB components became ineligible for regular funding after the 2014–2016 allocations were announced and therefore Albania became eligible to receive transition funding. It will receive a three-year transition grant within the 2017-2019 allocation period. This transition grant is expected to start in January 2020 and will be a significantly lower level of investment—about one third the value of current Global Fund grants. The implementation of the current Global Fund HIV and TB grant is ending in December 2019.
According to the estimated annual needs to sustain HIV and TB responses prior to submitting the transition grant request, Albania’s needs approximately US $3 million to address its two epidemics effectively. Hence US $9 million is required over 2020-2022, the three-year period of the transition grant. With an allocation of just under US $6 million within the current HIV and TB grants, roughly 60% of the funding need is currently being met. Without significant increases in domestic funding, the funding gap is expected to grow in the coming years. Moreover, the services for key affected populations (KAPs) are largely implemented by civil society. Their scale, quality and delivery models are to be improved under the new transition grant. So far, these services have not been funded from domestic resources, though there is an office for civil society and general funding for civil society groups in the country. The national strategies on HIV and TB are expiring in 2019. The Global Fund, under its pilot ‘CCM Evolution Project,’ supports Albania’s HIV and TB governance reforms although with no clear outcome so far.
Community and civil society advocacy is critical at this conjunction of processes to ensure sustainability of the response. But at the same time the transition Funding Request 2020- 2022 poses a direct challenge to the services provided by NGOs being sub-recipients of the Global Fund grant. It is expected that starting from 2020 the number of NGOs supported by Global Fund will become twice lower, decreasing from 12 to 5. It is not clear what happens with the activities implemented by those 7 NGOs left behind and which exactly NGOs this will be.
Taking this context into account, the Eurasian Harm Reduction Association (EHRA) in coordination with the Global Fund Secretariat, decided to organize a workshop for civil society and community representatives in Albania. The workshop aimed to help improve the understanding of local civil society representatives involved in the country’s HIV and TB responses, of the Global Fund transition-related processes currently taking place in country and also to stimulate ideas, plans and opportunities for their meaningful engagement into such processes to ensure the sustainability of HIV and TB response among key affected populations in Albania.
The participants first heard the information about the steps being taken by the government to prepare for transition of HIV/TB prevention interventions from the Global Fund’s support and also about the transition-related risks for HIV response and civil society services. Representatives of the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Health updated the participants on the work being done to secure funding and social contracting from national and local authorities including on the public budget cycles, possibilities to advocate and influence the budget at central and local level. Guest activists from North Macedonia and Montenegro shared their lessons learnt from the transition experiences of their countries with regard to budget advocacy efforts being taken by civil society in these countries to sustain HIV response among KAPs. The representative of the Agency for Support of Civil Society informed the participants about the opportunities of funding available for NGOs, including those related to public health. On the second day of the event the participants also had the opportunity to discuss and plan the advocacy steps need to be taken by civil society in nearest future to ensure the sustainability of services for KAPs as well as to discuss their Global Fund related TA needs and plan the possible content of the potential requests for the support within the Global Fund CRG TA Program.
DPNSEE President Vlatko Dekov presenting lessons learnt from North Macedonia
Genci Muçollari, Executive Director at DPNSEE member organisation Aksion Plus who participated in the workshop, thinks that “It was an interesting workshop though we were expecting high level presentation from the GF and the Ministry of Health and Social Protection (MHSP). World Health Organisation representatives were attending, other NGOs as well. Above all discussions among partners, the role of the MHSP and the Albanian government is very important to ensure a gradual transition from Global Fund to state funds through social contracting and other ways of contribution both in money and in kind to programs and activities covered before by GF. The workshop organizers presented some of the funding opportunities from other regional donors and call for proposals in order to support activities after the GF.”
The event was organized by the Regional Platform for Communication and Coordination for the EECA Region, hosted by Eurasian Harm Reduction Association (EHRA).
The short-term nature of technical assistance foresees that community experts can be deployed for approximately 30 days over a period of up to three months.
