The Global Fund recognizes that gender issues play an important role in the fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. In November 2007, the Global Fund Board decided to place a stronger emphasis on gender perspectives in its funding policies and operations. This decision was based on the recognition that in many countries women and men, girls and boys, and sexual minorities of different genders have unequal access to health interventions and services provided through programs supported by the Global Fund and other donors. The objective for the Global Fund is to support health interventions for all genders according to their needs, thereby making them more effective and enhancing health outcomes.
The Global Fund is now developing a gender strategy that will guide how it addresses gender inequalities in country programming and in the technical review of proposals.
In this regard, and in light of country level evidence, the Global Fund will broaden and strengthen strategic partnerships and encourage innovative approaches to more comprehensive programs involving sexual and reproductive health and family planning. This includes the development of additional criteria for grant eligibility as well as for assessing gender-sensitivity in proposal review, monitoring and evaluation.
Sexual minorities, people who may experience discrimination based on their real or perceived sexual practices with consenting adults, are also very vulnerable in most countries because of social marginalization and discrimination. The Global Fund has realized that a simple addition of sexual minorities to the gender framework cannot adequately address this problem, and has thus decided to develop a separate strategy regarding sexual minorities.
The discussions over the next four weeks will provide an opportunity for input into the development and fine-tuning of the two strategies – one on gender equality (for the three diseases) and one on sexual minorities (with a special focus on HIV/AIDS).
To participate in the discussions read the
questions.
Reference documents and links:
General
- Global Fund: Round 8 Guidelines [English] [Français] [Español] [Русский]
- UNAIDS Practical Guidelines for Intensifying HIV Prevention, particularly Table 2.2. [English] [Français] [Español] [Русский]
- Monitoring and evaluation toolkit [only available in English]
Gender
- WHO: What is “gender mainstreaming?” [English] [Français]
- Global Fund: Round 8 Fact Sheet on Gender. [English] [Français] [Español] [Русский]
- WHO: Engaging men and boys in changing gender-based inequity in health: Evidence from programme interventions (2007). [Only available in English]
- WHO: Gender and HIV/AIDS --Information sheet (2003). [Only available in English]
- WHO: Women and HIV/AIDS. [English] [Français]
- WHO: Linkages between sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and HIV. [English] [Français]
- UNIFEM: Gender and HIV/AIDS Portal [Only available in English]
WHO: Tuberculosis and Gender [Only available in English]
- WHO: Gender, Health and Malaria (2007) [Only available in English]
- Roll back Malaria Partnership [English] [Français]
Sexual minorities
- Global Fund: Round 8 Fact Sheet on Sexual Minorities. [English] [Français] [Español] [Русский]
- UNAIDS Policy Brief: HIV and Sex between Men (2006). [English] [Français] [Español] [Русский]
- UNAIDS : Derechos humanos, salud y VIH. Guía de acciones estratégicas paraprevenir y combatir la discriminación por orientación sexual e identidad de género by UNAIDS, Centro Internacional de Cooperación Técnica en VIH y Sida and GCTH. [Only available in Spanish]