I would like to address a narrow but I believe extremely important aspect of the Global Fund - that of grass-roots community participation in every stage of Global Fund programming. This is an area in which GFATM could - and in some cases does - exert a very powerful and positive influence, but also an area that requires a lot of creative effort and improvement in the coming 5-10 years.

Though we all know such participation is a critical element in effective responses to HIV and TB, and though the Global Fund strongly endorses it in its guidelines, in reality there is relatively limited involvement in truly community-based organizations, and community members, in the final funded activities. Though some funds do "trickle down" to this level, in fact both funds and decision-making authority are heavily concentrated at much higher levels, usually government or large NGOs. In the long run, this is a strong disempowering force that makes communities passive participants, and I think reduces the effectiveness of GF programmes.

Based on my experience of writing GFATM proposals and organizing writing teams and managing the proposal drafting process, unless civil society is more involved in the proposal drafting process, this dynamic will persist.

I would propose the following plan to involve civil society more meaningfully in grant writing: In each country, civil society members should be supported to create an online interface to communicate updated information about grant-writing processes with NGOs and CBOs, soliciting their participation and input at every step of the way. Of particular importance are issues surrounding becoming an SR (or a PR), as this is the way that CBOs can most effectively participate in and benefit from GF grants. This is also a critical bottleneck that governments and larger NGOs have not managed to overcome, in large part because information is not being disseminated in a transparent and easily accessible manner. For some reason, people tend to hold such information quite closely, and often they only share it with an "inner circle" of acquaintances or organisations. Once the deadline has passed, CBOs have no opportunity to input to grant proposals, and often have no chance of becoming an SR.

Such an online interface - really a simple task - could be managed by either the civil society rep on the CCM or some other NGO, or possibly a consortium of NGOs (to prevent any power struggles, etc). It would ideally be linked in to both the writing team and the CCM, since these two bodies will be sources of critical information required for civil society to be effectively involved in the process.

In addition, such an initiative can later be expanded to include information about grant implementation, improving the transparency of grants and stimulating more community involvement and input into grants as they proceed. It is important to note that the community-CCM (or CBO-CCM) relationship need not be an adversarial one, but we still need to ensure that less powerful voices are heard, and that information about grants is widely disseminated in a manner that makes it truly accessible to NGOs and CBOs.

While an online platform does not guarantee access for those grass-roots communities who lack internet access, it goes a long way to improving the ability of NGOs to know what is happening in, and be a part of, Global Fund grants in their own communities.

This initiative is affordable, realistic, and I believe easily rolled out in GFATM grantee countries. At the very least, it will spark great community interest and participation, and will help to build capacity among those NGOs who finally help to manage it.

Ultimately, this modest initiative would help to achieve the original goal of broad participation, and will improve the impact of the grants, which is of course the final measurement of the GFATM.