Stop TB Partnership

About the Challenge Facility

Challenge Facility Objectives

Communities are coming together to advocate and improve their own access to health services and increasingly organizing to plan and deliver effective healthcare on a large scale. Though it will never replace or match the national delivery of health, it can and does make a considerable contribution acting synergistically to improve access for marginalized groups, maintaining contact and referral to health services and ultimately creating a highly effective network of health interventions and community health systems.

In order to deliver on its mission, the CFCS aims to assist community-based civil society organizations by:

• Providing grants of not more than US$20,000 for projects that:
  • i. Support people affected by TB to become involved in advocating for formulation or change in policies, funding and practices to improve TB prevention and care
  • ii. Increase awareness and promote active participation of communities in the fight against TB at the local and/or national level
  • iii. Build capabilities of members of local communities, empowering individuals to understand and demand for their rights and assume their responsibilities
  • Strengthening links between grant recipients and local authorities (e.g., health services), to ensure there is ongoing government support for civil society contributions to the fight against TB.
  • Bringing together different organizations and grant holders to exchange best practices in mobilizing communities and managing projects

  The Stop TB Partnership's Challenge Facility for Civil Society (CFCS) targets grass-roots and community-based civil society organizations that give a voice to people with TB, communities affected by TB and communities that are involved in its prevention, treatment and care. Proposals are selected by an independent selection committee composed of a maximum of 10 individuals from communities affected by TB, NGOs from developing and developed countries, NTP managers, multilateral or technical agencies.

• The Stop TB Partnership Secretariat commits to efficiently manage CFCS resources by:
  • Identifying and stimulating the submission of high quality and competitive applications by developing selection criteria that promote the collaboration with local health services / TB programs, strengthen the autonomy and responsibility of local people in preventing and treating TB and demonstrate the greatest promise of project sustainability.
    
  • Holding grantees accountable for abiding by project milestones, e.g., only grantees whose project review demonstrates distinctive impact are eligible to apply for a second grant
  • Using simple project evaluation processes and criteria that
  • Using simple project evaluation processes and criteria that assess project results, the CFCS will extract lessons learned and promote promising practices to strengthen civil society engagement in TB advocacy and improve the following year’s grant making and evaluation processes

Grantee´s Objectives

Activities of grantees are expected to result in:

• increased number of actively involved TB advocates
• engagement and representation of TB affected communities in CCMs
• involvement of people affected by TB into decision making processes and bodies at different levels
• increased feedback to Stop TB Partnership bodies about the challenges, problems and achievements of the TB interventions in the area where they are operating
• a direct communication channel between civil society and TB partners functioning as an informal early warning system to raise any issues arising from stock outs or other challenges related to drug management and programmatic administration of TB and related services.

The ultimate result expected is the growth of resources for TB interventions; change in policy to improve access to TB care; and the engagement in the Patient's Charter for TB Care to promote the rights and responsibilities of patients.

Applications with well defined activities aimed at empowering people at the grass roots level to contribute on all aspects of TB (e.g. multidrug-resistant TB, and bring hard-to-reach populations into services (e.g. injecting drug users, indigenous communities, miners, migrants) will be given priority.

Four rounds of grants have been approved.