This report prepared by APCASO uses survey and interview data to document successes and gaps of Global Fund programmes and related mechanisms in the Asia-Pacific in engaging civil society, affected communities and key populations. The report focuses on seven countries; Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. It uses a survey with more than 300 participants and long-form interviews with key stakeholders.
The report concludes that civil society and communities have had increasing opportunities to meaningfully engage in Global Mechanism over the last two funding cycles, thanks to a combination of better guidelines for engagement and improved capacity. Yet, some challenges remain, and in particular the language barrier, with most high-level discussions taking place in English, limiting the capacity of affected communities to meaningfully input. The other key finding of the report is the need for institutional mechanisms to ensure functional two-way channels of communication between CCM representatives and their constituencies; in many of the countries in our sample, members of affected communities felt that they did not know enough about the activities of their representatives on the CCM, which made them feel disempowered.
This report is also available in Sinhala.