The Global Fund Gender Equity/Human Rights Guidance

The project was about measuring the unmeasurable in the face of strong resistance. Women represent more than half of the HIV/AIDS cases in the world. The Global Fund to fight HIV, TB and Malaria had no mechanism to determine if programs were awarded funds commensurate with need. The challenge was to get applicants and recipients to identify and provide data on behaviors that increase risk, when they believe they have no tools or information. I developed applied guidance for gender health equity/human rights assessments with implementation tools that included not only gender, but also sexual orientation, and behaviors that increase both the risk of disease and discrimination. Key to the guidance were examples of data sources and how these data and intelligence could be used to create a baseline to monitor equity. The guidance was adopted as policy. The standardized information remains systematically and regularly required of all grant applicants and recipients. Funding decisions now consider monitored advances in health equity. Learn more here.