Category Archives: TB

AAI Global Fund Advocacy Week in Geneva, Switzerland, 15-19 April 2013.

After the March 2013 launch of AAI’s Country Coordinating Mechanisms (CCMs) Community Consultation Report entitled “Who is really affecting the Global Fund decision making process?” AAI has begun conducting advocacy around the findings. The objective is to use the research as an accountability tool, acting as a best-practice and gaps analysis evidence base for improving the meaningful participation processes of women, girls and those marginalized by their sexual orientation in Global Fund processes.

Download the full report: Who is really affecting the Global Fund decision making processes? A Community Consultation Report

Download the survey report: Who is really affecting the Global Fund decision making processes? A Quantitative Analysis of CCMs

Download the media release: AIDS Accountability International on the Global Fund

 

To achieve this, AAI conducted its Global Fund Advocacy Week at the Global Fund Secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland, from 15-19 April 2013, since engaging Fund Portfolio Managers and Senior Technical Advisors on gender and key populations is critical for holding both the CCMs and the Global Fund Secretariat accountable for their obligations to marginalized populations. AAI also endeavoured to connect with other partners in Geneva, such as the World Young Women’s Christian Association (World YWCA), the International Labour Organization (ILO) along with funding partners and independent stakeholders.

On Monday 15 April 2013, AAI began its Global Fund Advocacy Week in Geneva by meeting with Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda (General Secretary) and Hendrica Okondo (Global Programme Manager SRHR & HIV Focal Point for Africa) at the World Young Women’s Christian Association (World YWCA). The discussion focused on reducing the distance for dialogue between young girls and policy makers, creating spaces of “conversational accountability” and “intergenerational dialogues” so that young girls can have the opportunity to engage with decision makers, but in less technical forums. Leadership was also a topic of strategic thinking, with AAI and the YWCA brainstorming around how to redefine leadership so that it does not rest on the pillars of education or income.

The following day, AAI met with a team of senior technical specialists at the Global Fund Secretariat. Speaking with Linda Mafu (Head, Political and Civil Society Department), Sara Davis (Senior Specialist in Human Rights and Equity), Motoko Seko (Gender and Human Rights Specialist) and Mauro Guarinieri (Senior Advisor, Community Systems Strengthening and Civil Society), AAI pushed for greater accountability towards Human Rights in Global Fund processes. It was agreed during the meeting that viewing human rights through a public health lens can often be highly effective in certain contexts where the rights and women, girls and LGBT people can be politically and culturally sensitive. This supports the research findings in AAI’s CCM Report. AAI and the Global Fund also discussed the new CCM guidelines (2010) which say that CCMs should demonstrate effort to include key affected populations in the country dialogue process. In terms of the way forward, it was raised that Fund Portfolio Managers might benefit from capacity building on how to engage better with civil society outside of the CCM, as well as on human rights and key populations issues.

Continuing with Global Fund Advocacy Week, AAI met with two Fund Portfolio Managers (FPMs), Richard Cunliffe (Botswana, Swaziland) and Viviane Hughes-Lanier (Niger). At these two meetings, AAI consulted with the FPMs about how best to strengthen Africa’s CCMs through improved participation of marginalized groups. The result was a recommendation from the Secretariat to build the capacity of civil society to become principal or sub-recipients, train key populations CCM members on how to influence a meeting, and train the CCM Chairs and Co-Chairs on how to run a meeting that includes discussions of strategic thinking around human rights considerations.

At the end of the week, solid plans had been made to move forward with the project in a manner that continues to involve the Secretariat in Geneva. This way, AAI can increase its impact in pushing for greater accountability to women, girls and SOGI groups from both the CCMs in country, and the FPMs and Technical Specialists at the Global Fund in Geneva.

 

SIGN-ON: Civil Society African Common Position Paper on The International Conference on Population Development: 3. Population Growth and Structure

3.1. Fertility, mortality and population growth

3.1.1. Ensure that population growth and structure, and demographic work is approached with a human rights and gender responsive lens;

3.1.2. Guarantee that policies to address high fertility and rapid population growth, focus on enlarging, not restricting, individual choices and opportunities;

3.1.3. Ensure that clear policy guidelines are developed and shared and implemented so as to ensure that human rights and gender responsive lens is implemented through to clinic level and that abuse and misinterpretation is impossible.

3.1.4. Improve data collection, quality and analysis to ensure that targeted and evidence based policies are developed, implemented and then closely monitored and evaluated for necessary adjustments.

 

3.2. Demographic Dividends

3.2.1. To commit to researching, understanding, and investing in the possible dividends to be gained from the pending youth bulge;

3.2.2. To ensure that the population is able to contribute and benefit from potential gains of the demographic dividend by ensuring the following criteria are met:

3.2.2.1. Youth have universal access to quality education, including but not limited to alphabetical and numerical literacy, secondary and tertiary education, comprehensive sexuality education and citizenship and human rights education. This must be equally provided to all, without gender or geographical, religious or other discrimination.

3.2.2.2. Youth have access to programmes which provide entrepreneurship and profit-generating activities training and provided with structural support to implement business ideas;3

.2.2.3. Youth are enabled to make informed and educated decisions on their health, including sexual and reproductive health and rights, and able to access quality health services and information;

3.2.3. Reinforce universal and country specific policies with proven results to spur future job creation and economic growth.

3.2.4. Ensure accountable and transparent leadership to manage demographic change.

 

DOWNLOAD THE AFRICAN COMMON POSITION PAPER HERE: AAI AUC Ford Civil Society African Common Position Paper on ICPD 2013 April

Africa: Historic Opportunity to Tackle Drug-Resistant TB Demands Fast Response.

The Lizo Nobanda TB Care Centre is run by Medecins Sans Frontieres. It is a short-stay facility with just 10 beds in the heart of Khayelitsha.

Press Release

People living with MDR-TB and their healthcare providers call for urgent action

Download the manifesto: TB manifesto (PDF)

Read the ‘Test me, treat me’ manifesto and see who signed it at: msfaccess.org/TBmanifesto

“We have been waiting for half a century for new drugs that are effective against tuberculosis. Must we wait another fifty years to seize this historic opportunity to improve and roll out treatment for drug-resistant TB?” said Dr Erkin Chinasylova, TB doctor for MSF in Swaziland. “Getting better treatment is beyond urgent, but we are not seeing anything like the level of prioritisation required to make this a reality.”

MSF projects are seeing unprecedented numbers of people with MDR-TB around the world, with drug resistance found not only among patients who have previously failed TB treatment but also in patients newly diagnosed with TB – a clear sign that MDR-TB is being transmitted in its own right in the communities in which we work.

Left untreated, the infectious disease is lethal, but treatment today puts people through two years of excruciating side effects, including psychosis, deafness and constant nausea, with painful daily injections for up to eight months. Barely half of people get cured.

After close to five decades of insufficient research and development into TB, two new drugs – bedaquiline and delamanid – have recently been or are about to be approved.

Research is urgently needed to determine the best way to use these new drugs so that treatment can be made shorter and more effective, and rolled out to treat the growing number of people with MDR-TB. People on MDR-TB treatment and their caregivers from around the world outline these and other demands in the Test me, treat me manifesto, and urge others to join their call for urgent action.

“It’s 2013 and I’m beginning a fourth year of living with TB, when I should be in my fourth year at university,” said Phumeza Tisile, a 22-year-old woman who receives treatment for extensively drug-resistant TB from MSF in Khayelitsha, South Africa, and is one of the signatories of the manifesto. “I’ve swallowed around 20,000 pills and received over 200 daily painful injections since I started treatment in June 2010, and the drugs have left me deaf. I wish I could take just two tablets a day for a month or so and be cured.”

The number of people receiving MDR-TB treatment globally remains shockingly low, at less than one in five. Greater political and financial support from the international community is needed to address this gap.

“Right when TB should be the global priority, the trend we’re seeing is that it is being deprioritised. This is unacceptable,” said Dr Manica Balasegaram, executive director of MSF’s Access Campaign.

The Global Fund provides about 90 per cent of international support for TB, but it has recently reduced the share going to the disease. Ahead of a key replenishment meeting later this year, donors must ensure the Fund is adequately financed so that countries have the support they need to strengthen the MDR-TB response.

With better treatment on the way, affected countries should scale up efforts to diagnose and treat MDR-TB today, so that robust programmes are in place once the new drugs are introduced.

See MSF infographics on TB – length of treatment, side effects, access to treatment etc – at msfaccess.org/TBmanifesto

Drug-resistant forms of TB are a neglected global health crisis: the World Health Organization estimates there were 630,000 cases of MDR-TB in 2011. MSF started providing treatment to people with MDR-TB in 2001. In 2011, MSF provided treatment to 1,300 people with MDR-TB in 21 countries.

By Doctors Without Borders
19 March 2013
http://allafrica.com/stories/201303191336.html