GFAN AP Updates Call 13 June 2024

The Global Fund Advocates Network Asia-Pacific (GFAN AP) hosted a webinar on 13 June 2024 to provide partners and stakeholders updates on key GFAN AP activities in 2024.

1. Internal Updates
The webinar commenced with Rachel Ong (Regional Coordinator, GFAN AP) introducing the new GFAN AP Steering Committee (SC) after undergoing a governance strengthening process in 2023 and call for applications for new Steering Committee Members. They are Daniel Marguari, the CEO of Yayasan Spiritia and a key leader in the HIV and Tuberculosis (TB) response in Indonesia; Karun Lama, a youth advocate and currently the Advocacy and Network Engagement Officer at Youth Voices Count (YVC) based in India; Moon Ali, the Executive Director of Khawaja Sira Society, an NGO focusing on advancing the rights of transgender women and Hijra community in Pakistan; Sita Shahi, the Regional Coordinator of the International Community of Women Living with HIV Asia-Pacific (ICWAP); Blessina Kumar, the CEO of the Global Coalition of TB Advocates (GCTA); and Masaki Inaba, the Co-Chair and Manager of the International Programme at Africa Japan Forum (AJF) in Japan. On behalf of the GFAN AP Secretariat, Rachel thanked the new Steering Committee members for their support of GFAN AP and look forward to their leadership, guidance and support. Additionally, Rachel acknowledged that additional expertise from the malaria community is still needed on the GFAN AP SC, and that a process of identifying a malaria advocate to join the SC is ongoing.

GFAN AP also has a new fiscal host – the International Network of People who Use Drugs (INPUD) based in the United Kingdom which provides administration and financial management support to GFAN AP. INPUD also holds an ex-officio seat on the GFAN AP SC.

A key priority of the SC would be to finalise an approve the new GFAN AP operational handbook which aims to institutionalise various standard operating procedures as well provide clearer policies related to expenditures such as procurement and travel. GFAN had previously followed the operational policies of its previous host and with the transition to a new host, had decided to take the opportunity and upon the recommendations from the governance strengthening consultant to develop specific policies to better reflect the needs of GFAN AP.

2. Activity Updates
In the presentation, Rachel shared key advocacy activities GFAN AP had carried out over the past months. This included the release of GFAN AP statements for International health-related days. GFAN AP will also be looking to release relevant statements related to community systems strengthening (CSS), community-led monitoring (CLM), as well as statements concerning key Global Fund policies.

GFAN AP also worked with colleagues from Korean Advocates for Global Health (KAGH), GFAN Africa and AJF on a joint statement on the recently held Korea-Africa Summit. The statement was signed on by over 300 communities and civil society organisations globally, submitted to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and received positive feedback. A specific ask from the statement was taken into account and included in the final declaration of the Summit. 

GFAN AP has also been working closely with colleagues from AJF and GFAN Africa in preparation for the Tokyo International Conference on Africa Development (TICAD) which will be taking place in 2025. The TICAD has typically been when the Japanese Government would announce its intended pledge to the Global Fund Replenishment cycle and therefore is an important milestone for the work of GFAN AP. GFAN AP will be working closely with relevant colleagues and stakeholders upon advice from AJF colleagues on advocacy activities needed leading up to TICAD to the Japanese Government.

Masaki provided additional information on the TICAD Ministerial Meeting that would be taking place soon and that unlike the Korea-Africa Summit, which did not have space for civil society participation, TICAD is. multilateral conferencing system for Africa-Japan development and civil society had historically had significant space to participate and input. There will be more opportunities for civil society to engage for direct advocacy and we should capitalise on this opportunity. GFAN AP will continue to keep collegues updated in the region on this front, given that Japan is the largest donor to the Global Fund from the Asia-Pacific and a founding member of the Global Fund. 

GFAN AP recently organised a webinar on the Future of the Global Health Initiatives, which is now known as the Lusaka Agenda. The Lusaka Agenda is currently at the end of its process, and Rachel noted that the name ‘Lusaka Agenda’ should not mislead colleagues that the issues are simply relevant to the health and funding landscape for the Africa continent; rather, the outcomes of the Lusaka Agenda will greatly impact the global health architecture and the global health financing landscape. Furthermore, it will influence how global health institutions organise themselves and how funding for health gets channelled as well as whether community and civil society might be able to, or not, access funding. Following the webinar, GFAN AP will plan to organise a small group of interested advocates to look at broader health financing issues in the Asia-Pacific region with the intention of supporting activism and community and bringing the issues relevant to the foreground of health discussions in the Asia-Pacific region. 

Rachel also shared ongoing discussions to strengthen collaborations between GFAN AP and the Seven Alliance, a consortium of Asia-Pacific networks of key populations and people living with HIV composed of APCOM, APN+, APNSW, APTN, ICW-AP, NAPUD, and Youth LEAD. The Seven Alliance is now also the host of the Asia Pacific Learning Hub which is supported by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund). GFAN AP and the Seven Alliance would be collaborating on community and civil society mobilisation towards the Global Fund Eighth Replenishment. A toolkit on the Global Fund Replenishment for key populations is being developed jointly and will be released as part of the package of tools for community and civil society advocacy for the Global Fund Eighth Replenishment. Furthermore, a member of the Seven Alliance also serves on the GFAN AP SC.

Roshan De Silva from the Diversity and Solidarity Trust in Sri Lanka shared the support from GFAN AP through its New Venture Fund grant to community and civil society in Sri Lanka on activities aimed to strengthen the sustainability of the HIV response of the country. These activities include the development of strategic information to support community advocacy on sustainability and transition, support community mobilisation and advocacy in country budget planning processes, community reviewing of GC6 and GC7 funding allocation and carry out cost unit exercises and community national budget training workshops. These efforts were made possible through the collaboration with DAST in 2021/22 with support from the Global Fund which developed the Investment Case for Sri Lanka and recommendations for next steps. Roshan hopes that through these efforts, Sri Lanka’s HIV community and civil society will be better placed to respond and engage as the country moves forward with the Global Fund transition timeline. 

Blessina Kumar, CEO of GCTA shared an update on the joint webinars carried together with GFAN AP in Q1 of this y ear. The webinars aimed to share the outcomes of GCTA’s rapid assessment of the advocacy situation in India, Indonesia and Philippines. Specifically, advocacy challenges faced by communities in the three countries were also shared as part of the findings of the rapid assessments. Findings from the GCTA rapid assessments found that challenges were alike in all three countries: (1) community voices are not really being heard by policy and decision makers; (2) funding for community remains a challenge, especially direct funding to communities; and (3) communities still require a lot of capacity building on advocacy. Blessina concluded her sharing by emphasising the need for all health advocates to come together and work as one united voice. 

The last presentation was made by Jennifer Ho, the consultant for the Global Fund support project – Asia-Pacific Advocacy Ecosystem Mapping. The mapping exercise was carried out against the shift in the global funding landscape for health and the various political shifts. It aimed to: (1) map relevant community and civil society partners and stakeholders in Asia-Pacific for joint health advocacy activities; and (2) identify the gaps, challenges and opportunities for community and civil society mobilisation for the upcoming Eighth Global Fund Replenishment in 2025. This mapping looked at two specific areas of community advocacy – for domestic resource mobilisation and for the upcoming Eighth Global Fund Replenishment, and gathered feedback from respondents about their experiences, factors and barriers that contributed or hindered their engagement. The presentation concluded with four key take away messages: (1) community and civil society organisations and networks often work on multitude of issues that intersect with their priority disease or health concerns. These intersectionalities can be a fertile ground for fostering cross sectoral collaboration on health and broadening alliance for health beyond the traditional health sector; (2) Multi-sectoral collaborations can be developed based on shared strategic priorities. Alignment of strategic priorities between community and civil society organisations and bi-land multilateral institutions can help foster active and sustained advocacy movements for health financing at both the national and global level; (3) Platforms that could help faciltiate cross-sectoral and multi-stakeholders collaboration and communication could contribute to timely and impactful advocacy responses in the region; and (4) capacity building of community and civil society remain needed and critical effective Global Fund Replenishment mobilisation and community advocacy for increased domestic resources for health.

The webinar concluded with appreciation to participants for their time and interest in the work of GFAN AP. GFAN AP will conduct quarterly update webinars to ensure partners and stakeholders are kept abreast, informed and engaged. Participants were also invited to subscribe to the GFAN AP mailing list to stay updated on various GFAN AP activities and relevant news related to the work of GFAN AP and partners.