As a partnership between governments, civil society, the private sector and affected communities, the Global Fund represents an innovative approach to international health financing. In Southern Africa, the Global Fund has committed over $500 million to support programmes addressing HIV prevention, care and support and treatment. Yet little of the funding provided through the Global Fund has specifically been allocated to programs that reduce women’s and girls’ vulnerability to HIV infection and/or meet the gendered needs of women and girls living with HIV and AIDS to treatment, care, or legal resources and to address matters related to HIV status and gender inequality.

To address this imbalance, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA), the Open Society Initiative for East Africa (OSIEA) and the Open Society Institute’s (OSI) Public Health Program are requesting proposals from coalitions of women’s rights and HIV and AIDS organizations in Southern Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, or Uganda that wish to:

• develop proposals for submission to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria that address the specific vulnerabilities of women and girls and particularly marginalized groups of women and girls (e.g. young women, sex workers, women living in rural areas, women from certain ethnic groups, etc.);
• build their capacity to engage with Global Fund processes at the country level;
• advocate to increase the flow of Global Fund resources to projects that meet women’s and girls’ needs in these countries.
  

In response to the proposals received, OSISA, OSIEA and OSI will provide funding and technical support to assist each coalition to conduct an assessment of the funding needs of HIV programs for women and girls in their country and, based on their findings, develop a detailed proposal that outlines and costs specific, evidence-based interventions to:

• improve women’s and girls’ access to HIV prevention information, technologies and services, including sexuality education and sexual and reproductive health services;
• increase HIV positive women’s access to care, treatment and support;
• meet the sexual and reproductive health needs of HIV positive women and girls; and
• promote the human rights of women and girls, particularly those living with HIV and AIDS.
  

Special emphasis should be made to meet the needs of particularly vulnerable or socially marginalized groups of women, including young women, women living in rural areas, and sex workers.

Following the technical and material support provided by OSISA/OSIEA/OSI, each coalition will be expected to submit their proposal to their country coordinating mechanism (CCM) for inclusion in a country-level proposal to the Global Fund. In addition, coalitions will be helped to plan advocacy initiatives that seek to ensure that CCMs are rendered more gender sensitive and are more receptive to including women’s rights issues in CCM proposals to the Fund.

Those wishing to access grants for the development of proposals to the Global Fund are requested to follow these steps:

1. Find out more about the Global Fund by accessing www.theglobalfund.org.

2. Find out more about your CCM and its members by phoning the local National AIDS Council or UNAIDS office or visiting your country page on the Global Fund website. In particular, find out if they intend to submit an HIV/AIDS proposal for Round 8.

3. Based on this information, establish contact with other women’s rights organizations, PLWHA organizations, and HIV service organizations to see whether they are interested in applying for Global Fund resources on women’s rights and HIV and AIDS.

4. If they are, establish an informal network or coalition (this does not have to be registered, but the organisation that will receive the funds on behalf of the group must be registered).

5. Select a focal point to coordinate the development of a mini-proposal to OSISA/OSIEA/OSI.

6. Select three coalition representatives that will be able to attend a workshop on February 18-22, 2008 (location to be determined) on Global Fund proposal development and advocacy, if their coalition is awarded this grant. Travel expenses for attendance at this workshop will be funded by OSISA/OSIEA/OSI and should not be budgeted for in the proposal.

7. Write the proposal and submit jointly with a cover letter that includes the signatures of all Coalition members and indicates the contact information for the communication focal point and three potential workshop participants.