24 June 2016 - Manila, Philippines - Thirty-eight members representing TB communities from 21 countries met in Manila during a workshop aimed to build the capacity of tuberculosis (TB) representatives and advocates to effectively represent their constituencies in their CCMs. The workshop focused on the need to change the approach for impactful action, strongly underlining that the WHO End TB strategy milestones will be missed if current efforts continue without a paradigm shift as articulated by the Stop TB Partnership’s Global Plan to End TB 2016-2020.
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria’s funding model requires increased responsibility and greater roles for CCMs, especially in the area of oversight, accountability and engagement of key populations and people living with HIV, TB and malaria. The Stop TB Partnership, the Global Fund, and the International HIV/AIDS Alliance collaborated to organize this workshop as they share a common goal of strengthening the CCMs.
The TB voices in CCMs are traditionally weak because TB affected communities are either not represented or are not equipped to effectively participate in CCM processes. The workshop recognized the important role that CCMs play in planning and monitoring of Global Fund’s investments on TB in countries. This is the second such workshop that the Stop TB Partnership has organized for CCM members from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Botswana, Cameroon, Congo, DR Congo, India, Indonesia, Malawi, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
"It started with an analysis Stop TB Partnership did of CCMs composition that pointed out the fact that almost half of the CCMs in high burden countries did not have TB communities represented. We are pleased to note that most CCMs in these countries now have representatives from TB communities. The Stop TB Partnership is partnering with the Global Fund and HIV Alliance to build their capacity to be effective within CCM meetings and processes," said Dr Suvanand Sahu, Deputy Executive Director of the Stop TB Partnership in his opening remarks at the workshop.
"I feel stronger knowing that there are partners pushing for strengthening TB constituency in the CCM and national processes," said Maricel Buen, CCM member from Philippines.
The workshop concluded with a firm resolution taken by the participants to promote the Global Plan to End TB 2016-2020 targets of 90-(90)-90 scale-up and to ensure that a paradigm shift happens in the TB responses in their countries, driven by the CCM. An e-module is currently in the process of being developed for replicating these capacity building activities at the country level.
The full of participants who attended the workshop can be accessed here.