Our friends at Results UK are following up, today on World TB day, on their recent webinars on including people-centred social support interventions in the Global Fund Allocation Cycle 2020-2022.

For further background listen to these webinars:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hTfnktORVMBBzlna2m9VV7Abc-kPkGGx/view

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UAJ2KhnbenkJEFN9EPRTRCgzEatRFdaW/view

They are reaching out with a couple of resources that might be useful for contacting CCMs about the national funding requests, including a template letter. The ask is that you participate in this action THIS WEEK and share your action via this tracker.

Steps to Supporting this Campaign:

Who to contact:

• Country Coordinating Mechanisms (see below for how). 
• Consultants writing the funding requests. 
• Global Fund programme managers.
• Technical partners, such as WHO, Stop TB Partnership, APCRG, who can provide technical assistance for engaging with the process.

How to contact them:

• Contact details of CCMs can be found here. 
• Using the template letter (see below), you can tailor the asks and messaging to suit the country context. You can use the findings from the Tuberculosis and UHC report’s scorecard (p.6-7) to highlight if the country is providing people-centred social support services, if these are limited to certain populations (e.g. DR-TB only) and whether the services are reliant on Global Fund funding.
• For information on people-centred social support interventions (such as nutrition support, cash transfers and mental health support), please see this fact sheet.  

When to contact them:

• Now! 
• Countries received an allocation letter from the Global Fund Secretariat in December detailing the allocation amounts for each of the three diseases. Based on this letter, you can make strategic inputs on why it is important to fund people-centred social support interventions for people with TB. We are now in the second submission window. 
• Find out when the country dialogue is happening, organised by the CCM, and organise to meet with the CCM members to discuss the importance of people-centred social support interventions.

The importance of people-centred health systems is especially apparent in the context of the outbreak of COVID-19. The outbreak brings social protection issues into sharp focus, highlighting the impact of disease on social wellbeing as a result of loss of employment, mental health challenges, isolation and stigma. Building a people-centred response to diseases like TB in turn builds a more resilient health system overall, and one which is equipped to respond better to new outbreaks. 

If you take this action during the week of World TB Day, please let us know via this tracker.