The Second Regional Forum on implementing short-term technical assistance supported by the Global Fund’s Community Engagement Strategic Initiative (CE SI TA Program) in Eastern Europe and Central Asia reviewed lessons from 2021-2022 and opportunities for the future. Additionally, the new features and prospects in the upcoming funding allocation cycle, starting in 2023, were presented.

The in-person Forum gathered 26 speakers, participants, and organizers in Istanbul. Additional 9 speakers and participants joined online via Zoom. The participants included 10 past and current TA recipients and representatives of 8 CE SI TA providers and consultants. The Global Fund’s team consisted of a CE SI Senior Program Officer responsible for coordination of short-term TA in the EECA region, a Senior Fund Portfolio Manager, a CRG Regional Advisor for EECA, and an Access to Funding team representative. Other partners and technical support organizers who presented the plans linked to the upcoming Global Fund grant cycle (GC7) included UNAIDS, GIZ, WHO/Europe, the STOP TB Partnership, and the Regional Project ‘SoS-2.’

The Regional Platform for Information and Communications organized the Forum, using the experience of a similar Regional Forum in 2019 in Chisinau, Moldova.

The concept note [English|Russian] developed by the EECA Regional Platform informed the agenda. The organizers coordinated the Forum’s plans with the Global Fund colleagues, on whose recommendation they added a segment on guidelines, processes, and requirements for the Global Fund’s new allocation cycle. The agenda [English|Russian] featured different methods of work: presentations, experience sharing, analysis of a case from perspectives of various players involved, panel discussions, plenary discussions, and the interactive co-development of recommendations through the world café approach. Before the Forum, a rapid assessment was conducted to analyze the progress of the CE SI TA Program compared to the 2017-2019 round and identify good practices and lessons learned. This assessment was finalized already after the workshop and is available here.

The Forum’s report features the highlights from the discussions, followed by the meeting’s evaluation results. For brevity, the PowerPoint presentations are hyperlinked to the files without repeating their content in the report. The meeting materials are available in the special Dropbox folder at this link:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xczk7uk0v7wzmyv/AADsdLIVZqohIEG2qYd9IXiNa?dl=0