Assessment of Global Fund Investments for Adolescents and Young Key Populations in Four Countries in Asia: Myanmar, Indonesia, Cambodia and Pakistan

Assessment of Global Fund Investments for Adolescents and Young Key Populations in Four Countries in Asia: Myanmar, Indonesia, Cambodia and Pakistan

Youth LEAD has been leading the advocacy and engagement of young key populations (YKP) in the Global Fund process in Asia. In 2014, the Global Fund Youth Guide Facilitator toolkit was developed and was piloted in Honduras, Nepal and Zimbabwe. Youth LEAD became one of the recipients of Special Initiatives Support of the Global Fund-CRG (Community Rights and Gender) managed by the Robert Carr Network Fund in 2015 and 2016. Special Initiatives has primarily three objectives:

• Strengthening global and regional civil society networks to support their country-level constituencies and networks to meaningfully engage in Global Fund related processes and programs, including (but not limited to) national strategic planning, country dialogues, and concept note development;
• Developing the capacity of those communities currently marginalised to effectively engage at all stages of the Global Fund grant cycle, including National Strategic Plan development; and
• Empowering inadequately served populations to advocate for increased investment in community-led, rights and gender-related programming to enable a more sustainable and effective HIV response at the country level.

Youth LEAD intended to achieve the first two objectives. The increased number of YKP in Country Coordinating Mechanisms (CCM), the inclusion of the YKP issues in the final concept note, the strengthened network led by YKP, increased discussion on YKP at the national level were few palpable results of the project. The countries where the project was implemented were Cambodia, Indonesia, Mongolia, Nepal, PNG, Pakistan and Vietnam in 2015 while added up Myanmar in 2016.

Youth LEAD has been awarded the Special Initiative for 2016 as well and has implemented the project in same countries from 2015, which included Cambodia, Indonesia, Mongolia, Nepal, PNG, Pakistan and Vietnam while added up Myanmar (as Myanmar submitted the new concept note in mid-2016)

With this backdrop, Youth LEAD in preparation for the 2017 engagement aimed to assess the investment of the Global Fund in adolescents and young key populations in selected countries of Asia. The Global Fund Secretariat through CRG department has already convened the similar study at the global level titled Assessment of current Global Fund investments to address HIV and TB prevention, treatment and care needs of adolescents for better adolescent health outcomes. The study sampled six countries namely Cameroun, Indonesia, Kenya, Swaziland, Ukraine and Zambia and aimed to

• To identify in a sampling of countries (6), the extent of the Global Fund’s investments in adolescent health (TB and HIV) and to ascertain whether these investments contribute to improved adolescent health outcomes;
• To identify specific underfunded areas (against existing programming and strategic evidence) for adolescents in the reviewed sampling of Global Fund grants;
• To suggest a minimum of concrete and substantial recommendations on how the Global Fund structures and processes could help to address identified gaps to invest more strategically in adolescent health.

The proposed assessment by Youth LEAD aims to convene a similar study in the selected countries of Asia. However, the assessment will magnify the GF response at the country level remaining within certain assessment criteria and scope of work. The outcome of the assessment will be utilised for advocacy during 2017 funding request development process at countries. The Youth LEAD secretariat recruited Jamie Uhrig as a consultant to assess Global Fund investments for adolescent and young key populations in Myanmar, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Pakistan.

The three objectives of the study were:

1) To document and analyse the Global Fund’s investment in adolescents and young key populations in the selected countries, and to ascertain whether these investments contribute to improved adolescent and young key populations health outcomes;

2) To identify specific underfunded areas (against existing programming and strategic evidence) for adolescents and young key populations in the reviewed sampling of Global Fund grants;

3) To suggest at the minimum concrete and substantial recommendations on how the Global Fund structures and processes could help to address identified gaps to invest more strategically in adolescent and young key populations health.