News & storiesAIDS 2022: Shifting the power for community leadership
News & storiesAIDS 2022: Shifting the power for community leadership
AIDS 2022: Shifting the power for community leadership
Last updated on: 05 March 2024
We hear it everywhere: it is time to shift the power. Communities should be in the driver’s seat of the changes that they envision. The buzzword ‘shifting the power’ sings around at most conferences and meetings, but do we really walk the talk? In reality, communities still have little control over funds and have limited resources as well, are hardly ever involved in the development of programmes, and are still being tokenised. The reality is bleak: only 2% of funding for HIV programmes targets key populations.
Activities in the Aidsfonds Networking Zone
Aidsfonds will be present in the Global Village at AIDS2022. Our networking zone offers insights and space for discussion on how to truly walk the talk: how can communities drive policies and programming? And we invite everyone to share ideas on how to go about the elephant in the room: power disparity.
At AIDS 2022, Aidsfonds and partners want to talk about the elephant in the room: power. What does power look like? How do we break the status quo? What is good donorship? How can communities drive policies and programming? Most of all: how do we truly walk the talk? As a modern/involved funder and implementer, Aidsfonds believes that a true power shift to communities is necessary to end AIDS by 2030 and to protect everyone’s rights along the way.
We believe that a true power shift is POWERED BY…
Communities taking the lead in programming
Communities know what works and which approach is most effective. Community-led and community-based programming enables people to take control in their own communities. Through co-creation and co-decision making, we jointly design, implement and evaluate our projects.
Communities taking control over their own health
Self-care increases the agency of one’s health. It can enable communities to prevent, diagnose and treat health issues in a private manner when and where it suits them best. Together with partners, we have built multiple (digital) self-care and health solutions that meet the need for accessibility, anonymity, and user-friendliness of SRHR/HIV information and services.
Communities taking the lead in advocacy
To achieve lasting positive change, policies and funding decisions should reflect the needs of communities. Through our advocacy loop, we link up country, regional and global advocacy that is fully informed by communities’ advocacy priorities and country-level evidence.
Partnerships for sustainable change
Collaboration is the cornerstone of everything we do. It ensures strong programmes; provides opportunities for new business models, and key donors become champions of community intervention models. We are an active member of several global networks and working groups. We joined forces with top researchers, communities and donors to find a cure for HIV. Only together, we can shift the power for sustainable change!
Communities taking the lead in funding decisions
Over the past decade, we have worked with and learnt from a multitude of funders and partners about participatory grantmaking. Handing over responsibility has forced us to look critically at our role as a funder. This has resulted in communities co-deciding on all our funding decisions forming a cornerstone of our 2022-2025 strategy. Money is power. We believe that through participatory grantmaking, we can shift the power to those people who matter most.
How to shift the power – a summary
Download our “Powered by” flyer for a quick and easy overview of the different ways to implement this power shift for community leadership.
Bella Aubree among new members of the Global Fund Youth Council
Bella Aubree among new members of the Global Fund Youth Council
Last September the Global Fund announced the new members of its Youth Council. Among the new members is Bella Aubree, National Coordinator of Inti Muda Indonesia - the Indonesian young key populations network. Bella Aubree is a young Indonesian trans woman who has dedicated nearly six years to working on sexual and reproductive health, HIV, TB and human rights, focusing on young key populations and people living with HIV.
Eight political parties commit to global health and SRHR at launch of multiparty initiative
Eight political parties commit to global health and SRHR at launch of multiparty initiative
On Friday 4 October, the multiparty initiative on global health and sexual and reproductive health & rights (SRHR) was launched at Nieuwspoort in The Hague. Hosted by the Dutch Global Health Alliance (DGHA) and the SRHR platform, this initiative aims to maintain the Netherlands’ leadership role on global health and SRHR by bringing parliamentarians from a broad range of political parties together to stand up for these issues. After dynamic discussions and reflections, the parliamentarians made their commitment to global health and SRHR official by signing up as members of the new multiparty initiative. Eight political parties have joined the initiative, reaffirming that health not only transcends borders, it also transcends politics.