Topic: Community engagement

The Communities Delegation to the Unitaid Board, representing people living with the diseases, actively participated in the 44th Executive Board (EB44) session on June 18-19, 2024, in Geneva, Switzerland. The Board member a.i., the Alternate Board member a.i., two Delegation members and the Liaison Officer represented the Communities Delegation. They held pre-meetings to discuss the agenda topics and support the Board members’ interventions, ensuring the grassroots voices and concerns were represented. 

This brief report summarizes the key issues, the Communities Delegation’s positions, and the resulting outcomes and decisions from the EB44 Board meeting.

The Communities Delegation to the Unitaid Board, representing people living with the diseases, actively participated in the 43rd Executive Board session at its semi-annual meeting held on 21 and 22 November 2023 in Brasilia, Brazil. The Communities Delegation was represented by the Board member, liaison officer and four delegation members who held pre-meetings prior to the EB43 session to discuss the board meeting agenda and support the interventions of the Communities Board member to represent the voices and concerns of the communities at grass root level.

This brief report summarises the key issues discussed at the Board meeting, the Communities Delegation’s positions, and the resulting outcomes and decisions.

Our CLAIM programme supports people living with HIV to fully claim their space in Global Fund processes and claim their role in ensuring that Global Fund grants are developed, implemented, and monitored in ways that are effective and inclusive. It is a collaboration between GNP+ and networks of people living with HIV. These stories of change highlight some of the achievements of our CLAIM partners in Eswatini, Malawi, Moldova, Nigeria, Indonesia and Pakistan, showing how they have successfully influenced Global Fund processes and sharing the lessons they have learned along the way.

Through our Community-Led Accountability, Influence, and Monitoring programme (CLAIM) GNP+ enables people living with HIV to fully claim their space in Global Fund processes and claim their role in ensuring that Global Fund grants are developed, implemented, and monitored in ways that are effective and inclusive. 

Countries are currently preparing their requests for the next round of funding from the Global Fund. This phase is called GC7 – grant cycle 7 (previously known as NFM4 – new funding model 4). We have created a series of tools to support networks of people living with HIV to engage in this process to ensure that Global Fund resources are allocated towards the interventions needed most by communities of people living with HIV.

Download the tools below:

1. A Guide to GC7
2. A Guide to meaningful community engagement in GC7
3. Agenda for a community dialogue to identify priority funding areas for GC7
4. How to develop community advocacy priorities for inclusion in your country’s funding request to the Global Fund

Through our Community-Led Accountability, Influence and Monitoring programme (CLAIM) GNP+ enables people living with HIV to fully claim their space in Global Fund processes and claim their role in ensuring that Global Fund grants are developed, implemented and monitored in ways that are effective and inclusive. This tool has been created to support networks of people living with HIV to hold virtual meetings.

Download the guide on tips and trick for virtual meetings below:

Through our Community-Led Accountability, Influence and Monitoring programme (CLAIM) GNP+ enables people living with HIV to fully claim their space in Global Fund processes and claim their role in ensuring that Global Fund grants are developed, implemented and monitored in ways that are effective and inclusive. This tool has been created to guide networks of people living with HIV to develop a report outlining a shared civil society set of priorities to use for advocacy in their country.

Download the guide on how to write an advocacy report below:

The materials below are created to build young people living with HIV and Young Key Populations’ readiness to confidently engage in and influence PEPFAR COP processes.

Watch how-to guide Video for strengthening youth engagement around PEPFAR Country Annual Planning below:

Or download the PEPFAR how-to guide powerpoint slides below:

The Communities Delegation to the Unitaid Board, representing people living with the diseases, actively participated in the Executive Board of Unitaid at its semi-annual meeting held virtually, on 15 and 16 December 2021. The Communities Delegation was represented by the Board members, liaison officer, and five delegation members. Prior to the EB39 meeting, the Delegation held pre-meetings to discuss the board meeting agenda and support the interventions of the Communities Board members to represent the voices and concerns of the communities at grass-root level. 

This brief report summarises the key issues discussed at the Board meeting, the Communities Delegation’s positions, and the resulting outcomes and decisions. Download below.

Love Alliance’s global advocacy strategy focuses on supporting and strengthening key population movements to build and organise, particularly by increasing the presence and visibility of young key populations through partnerships, and building the capacity of key population networks at national and regional levels to push governments and partners to take action to address human rights, gender equality, violence, criminalisation, stigma, and discrimination; resource community-led interventions; and realise the objectives of global policies and strategic commitments on HIV, SRHR, and UHC.

By working directly and consistently towards the 10-10-10 targets, Love Alliance’s advocacy will advance human rights and gender equality to ensure that key populations and people living with HIV enjoy their freedoms, agency, and access to health.

The authors of these stories are part of our 2021 Life Force. This is their first experience of writing their stories. The visuals and comic strips were also developed by one of the Life Force. The Life Force guide joint advocacy by GNP+, ICW, and Y+ Global – the global networks of people living with HIV – through our BeyondLIVING partnership.

This book brings together a collection of six stories and visuals by people living with HIV from around the world. The stories are real. As the global networks of people living with HIV, we know that these stories are not unique. From self-stigma and rejection by loved ones to being excluded from schools and workplaces, these stories capture some of the many ways people living with HIV experience stigma. 

However, these stories also highlight the resilience of people living with HIV and the support and solidarity that they have found. These are stories of overcoming rejection and discrimination. They are stories of choosing to live and choosing to love. They are stories of giving back to the community and contributing to society. 

The GNP+ Community-Led Accountability, Influence and Monitoring programme (CLAIM) enables people living with HIV to fully claim their space in Global Fund processes and claim their role in ensuring that Global Fund grants are developed, implemented and monitored in ways that are effective and inclusive.

Through CLAIM, we support Community Forums to facilitate communication and coordination among people living with HIV. The main purpose of the Community Forum is to develop a shared advocacy agenda with clear priorities and recommendations that can be used to influence HIV and health-related processes, in particular those connected to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria.

This guide was developed by GNP+ to help networks to organise effective Community Forums for people living with HIV, in all their diversity.

All of the incredible things we have achieved as GNP+ in 2020 have been possible through the support and solidarity of our partners. And while the pandemic impacted us too, it has not stopped us. If anything, it has reignited our determination to fight injustice, as we continue to be inspired by the work of our communities.

See the Impact Report 2020 infographic

On behalf of the Love Alliance, seven organizations representing community organisations working with Aidsfonds and the Global Network of People Living with HIV (GNP+), and endorsed by the Communities Delegation, we submit the below priorities ahead of the Extraordinary Board Meeting on the Strategic Framework for the Global Fund’s Strategic Framework for 2023-2028. We build our comments on the paper that the Love Alliance submitted with the Communities delegation ahead of the 15th Strategy Committee in March 2021 called Mission Critical.

This guide was created to support civil society to engage and contribute more effectively during the 2021 High-Level Meeting on HIV and AIDS (HLM). Unlike other HLM processes the majority, if not all, of the HLM activities, will be virtual. This means that it is especially important for advocates to find solutions to build their capacity, strengthen their networks and engage in advocacy virtually. This guide includes some important engagement opportunities and places to start on this journey.

The 2021 high-level meeting will be the springboard for a decade of action to reduce inequalities and root out the social determinants that fuel the HIV epidemic.

Source: UNAIDS

Young, Wild, & Free is a Y+ Global programme bringing together networks of young people living with HIV to share best practices of engagement, support, and resilience of young key populations. Young, Wild, & Free highlighted three innovative youth networks doing amazing work in the HIV response – Teenergizer (Ukraine), Inti Muda (Indonesia), and Y+ Global – who then have been working with 8 grassroots networks (Positive Young Women Voices (Kenya), Y+ Kenya (Kenya), Positive Women’s network (South Africa), Y+ South Africa, Inti Muda (Indonesia), Gtown (Vietnam), Lighthouse (Vietnam), Teenergizer (Ukraine)) to implement one of their best practices. This guidebook was created so you too could learn their tricks and implement your own in your country!

A Guideline for the Involvement of People Living with HIV in the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria’s Country Coordination Mechanism.