Country Coordinating Mechanisms

• Encourage women officials, women networks, associations, NGO’s and CSO’s to be part of the CCM. Also include a gender expert from civil society. Women that show interest but lack the necessary skills should be properly empowered through skills and capacity building.
• Rotate the chair and vice chair of the CCM for it to be gender sensitive; time frame should be set for CCM to reach gender equity.
• Further detailing the proposal guidelines and add a mandatory section on gender.
• Introduce a score sheet on gender-evaluation that the CCM can fill, with certain score to be attained; other measurement tools for proposal development that includes gender components.
• Training and orientation of CCM on gender issues, build capacity of CCM’s collaborating with organizations like UNIFEM, UNFPA, UNAIDS and others that provide gender sensitization training.
• Support CCMs with gender experts during proposal development.
• All vulnerable populations should be represented in the CCM; transsexuals and sexual workers are not represented in the CCM and is necessary to include these groups in the decision making process.
• The Global Fund to introduce targets for gender representation in the CCM and monitor them to ensure that participation from women is met, and that information is shared. 

The technical review of proposals 

• Gender and age disaggregated data should be required in the preparation of proposals to the Global Fund. Global Fund should facilitate such reporting with help from other partners. Disaggregated data should also include the transsexual population. The Global Fund can create a unit to follow up on the global epidemiological dynamics aggregated by gender end age to take pre-emptive measures at global level.
• Provide full information but also detailed sheets that are helpful for TRP members. For example: regional gender inequality information sheet with examples of good practices.
• TRP to continue scoring the proposal on the basis of gender equality and to make an assessment on the existing criteria and their relevance and contribution on bringing out gender equality issues on programs and interventions.
• Countries that do not address gender properly should be given a chance to re-submit their proposals and if proposal needs to be re-submitted TRP can be more flexible about the time-line.
•  TRP should have a mandatory goal to reach 50% participation of women, attracting skilled and knowledgeable women as members to contribute during proposal selection. They should also have a representative of the transsexual community.
• TRP members do not need be experts but they need to be knowledgeable on gender sensitive proposals, have knowledge on gender program analysis and gender disaggregated data, have experience in gender budgeting and other gender related issues. There should be a detailed evaluation process that will assess the level of experience and expertise. Or, to create an advisory group to assist the TRP to deal with specific data.
• Demographic data must be validated by TRP experts in collaboration with national or community authorities dealing with health statistics.TRP needs to develop a database on gender expertise at regional and global level.

Monitoring, evaluation and reporting

• Gender equality services delivery areas should also include gender-based violence, microfinance, promotion of maternal health, skills empowerment, capacity building on the approaches to elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, promotion of women participation in politics.
• Gender equality services can range from behavioral change communication to programs of income generation for women living with HIV and other vulnerable girls and women. Also, medical and legal services offered to survivors of violence. Number one priority should be given to microfinance as this might lead to overall empowerment of women which might minimize gender-based violence and other disparity considerably. Encourage couple testing and PMTCT. Integration of HIV and gender into sexual and reproductive health services. Funding the development of female controlled HIV prevention, like the female condom. Global Fund should fund research to obtain data on the link between gender and HIV.
• It is important to include reporting of sex and age disaggregated data.
• Sex and age disaggregated data are not important, everyone should be targeted.
• Global Fund to revise the existing monitoring and evaluation system to include gender specific indicators which should also be reflected on the reporting guidelines.
• Global Fund to work with UNAIDS and WHO and the Government at country level including other multilateral funders and discuss monitoring and evaluation framework that exist at country level.
• The inclusion of a gender expert in the monitoring and evaluation of the GF programs is also important.
• It is a good idea for the Global Fund board to provide extra funding for countries to access at Phase 2 in order to improve the gender equality orientation of existing grants.
• The monitoring, evaluation and reporting methodology should include socioeconomic items that are useful to appraise the impact of the Global Fund in rural areas.  

Partners and networks

• Continue to work closely with global partners to unify the mandate of gender equality.
• Revise agreements and MOUs to include gender equity accountability.
• Develop and agree on monitoring framework and indicators through regular review meetings with partners.
• Focus on commitment and work from CSOs and not on MOU, agreements and paperwork.

Advocacy and communications

§         Communication efforts should be adapted to the needs of each community, the social and political situation of the country.

§         Global Fund to play a strong advocacy role and support countries to develop their advocacy strategies, which the CCM can lead.

§         Global Fund should communicate all messages on gender sensitive programming at all times and play a strong advocacy role.

§         Involve national mass media and all stakeholders including civil society.

§         The Global Fund should enter a new partnership agreement with national communication authorities (ministries) in order to provide national mass media free of charge for the fight against the three diseases including a gender component.    

General comments on the draft 

• Global Fund should not enforce a strict policy so that different populations can be addressed appropriately.
• Monitoring and evaluation strategies should ensure that no one in need is left out.
• The term Gender Equity should be used (and not “Gender Equality”), as trying to balance out the inequalities may be counter productive in many cultural settings, no matter how objective the strategy is.
• Pre-occupation with any gender at the cost of the other can be regarded as sexism or sex discrimination. Emphasis should be on men and women at risk or already affected by a disease.
• Global Fund can fund and support women associations and networks through capacity building; encourage bilateral and multilateral organizations and the private sector to strengthen the capacity of women.
• Development of in country gender experts though networking, creating a roster to utilize their skills and build their capacity.
• Global Fund to fund networking and skill building e-forum for gender experts at country level to discuss and network regionally and globally.
• Actions aimed to solve gender equity problems must be linked to the fight against poverty.