The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA), the Open Society Initiative for East Africa (OSIEA), and the Open Society Institute’s (OSI) Public Health Programme are requesting proposals from coalitions of women’s rights and HIV/AIDS organisations in Southern Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda that wish to develop proposals for submission to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria addressing the specific vulnerabilities of women and girls.

In response to the proposals received, OSISA, OSIEA, and OSI will provide funding and technical support to assist selected coalitions to conduct an assessment of the funding needs of HIV programmes for women and girls in their country and, based on their findings, develop a detailed proposal to be submitted to the Global Fund that outlines and estimates costs for specific, evidence-based interventions to:

• improve women's and girls' access to HIV prevention information, technologies, and services, including sexuality education and sexual and reproductive health services;
• increase HIV-positive women's access to care, treatment, and support;
• meet the sexual and reproductive health needs of HIV-positive women and girls; and
• promote the human rights of women and girls, particularly those living with HIV and AIDS.

The coalitions should be comprised of organisations that have experience working with and for women and girls in the area of HIV/AIDS. They should be broad and inclusive, should involve organisations that work with and for women living with HIV/AIDS, women living in rural areas, young women, and sex workers, and should advocate for the protection of women's human rights. OSISA, OSIEA, and OSI are requesting that where no coalitions or networks of this nature already exist, they be formed for the purposes of this proposal. While the coalitions will be expected to work together throughout the duration of this project, there is no expectation that the coalition be sustained afterwards or used for other purposes. Following the technical and material support provided by OSISA/OSIEA/OSI, each coalition will be expected to submit their proposal to their country coordinating mechanism (CCM) for inclusion in a country-level proposal to the Global Fund.

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Each coalition is requested to submit proposals containing the following information:

• a list of the organisations involved in the coalition with a brief description of each organisation's experience working with women and girls, as well as with HIV/AIDS, and their experience with the Global Fund, if any;
• an overview of Global Fund grants for HIV/AIDS in the country and the extent to which they address the needs of women and girls (country proposals are available on the Global Fund's website);
• preliminary information about the CCM, its interest in submitting a proposal to the Global Fund for Round 8, and CCM-specific deadlines for the submission of proposals (if available);
• a detailed work-plan outlining the process through which the coalition will carry out the development of the proposal. This should include anticipated technical assistance needs, consultations with women's groups and AIDS organisations, information about specific regions or issues on which the proposal wil focus, etc;
• budget in US dollars that includes costs for coalition meetings, in-country meetings, consultant costs, etc. up to a maximum of US$30,000; and
• brief bios of the five coalition leaders who will take primary responsibility for overseeing the development of the country proposal and who will represent the coalition at a workshop to be held from February 18-22 2008.

All project proposals are to be submitted in the following format:

• Arial or Times New Roman Font, 11 point
• 1.5 spacing
• Budget in Excel in US$ dollars
• PDF documents are acceptable

Deadlines for the submission of proposals to CCMs will vary from country to country. All proposals must be written in English. Proposals should be submitted via email with the subject heading “Women and Girls Global Fund Proposal” to:

Lila Elman

lelman@sorosny.org

The submission deadline is December 21 2007.