Dear Ute Papkalla,

 Thank you for your inquiry on eligibility requirements for Regional Organizations.

Detailed requirements for Regional Organization applicants are set out in section 2 of the Multi-Country Guidelines and Proposal Form. For information specific to Regional Organizations, see page 14 of the Guidelines under the heading, “Regional Organization Applicants”.

The link to the Round 8 Guidelines on the Global Fund website can be found at the following link: http://www.theglobalfund.org/documents/rounds/8/GuidelinesR8_multi_en.pdf

 In brief:

• Regional Organizations should be a legally registered entity. Section 2.3.1 asks for documents that describe the organization's status, such as statutes, by-laws (official registration papers) and a summary of the main sources and amounts of funding.

• Attempts must be made by the Regional Organization to obtain the CCM's endorsement of the proposal for each country involved in the proposal – as is requested in s.2.3.5 of the Guidelines. That is, there is no 'non-CCM' approach to multi-country proposals. To ensure that the planned interventions in a multi-country proposal are understood and, as relevant, consistent with national programs, the membership of each CCM (at a meeting or through another documented process) must agree to endorse a Regional Organization's proposal. The CCM is not approving the budget, or the specific interventions. Rather, the CCM is endorsing the overall approach so far as the multi-country proposal relates to that country.

• Other requirements are that Regional Organizations should show how they involved a broad range of stakeholders in the proposal development process – both other organizations and of course, the CCMs in the countries in which interventions are planned, and then also people living with and/or affected by the disease.

• Regional Organization applicants must demonstrate that a simple majority of 51% of the countries included in the Round 8 proposal would have been eligible to apply as single country applicants. (For example, a proposal may include five countries that have common borders and the proposal seeks to achieve a cross-border outcome. Such a proposal must have at least three countries included as 'eligible' in Annex 1 to these Guidelines before the applicant can apply.