Technical cooperation/provision of technical support/assistance serves to bridge gaps in knowledge, data or expertise at the country level. While the Global Fund itself does not offer technical support, it works very closely with partners to facilitate technical cooperation for countries.

Countries can request technical cooperation at various different stages of the funding process

National Strategic Plan: Support for a situation analysis or an epidemiological assessment, policy advice or independent reviews during the development of the national strategic plan.

• Country Dialogue: Assistance with country dialogue for the Country Coordinating Mechanism. Also, civil society organizations, community organizations and networks within the country can ask for assistance in developing the necessary skills and knowledge to see that their needs and views are fully represented, and that issues around community systems strengthening, key populations, gender and human rights are fully taken into account.
• Concept Note Development: Support using the modular tool or with program design in the preparation of the concept note.
• Grant-making: Help with responding to the risk and capacity assessments of proposed implementers during the grant-making process. First-time Principal Recipients may also need support as they prepare to sign the grant agreement.
• Implementation: Support for dealing with implementation bottlenecks or long-term capacity development throughout implementation.

In addition, technical cooperation is available for cross-cutting issues, such as:

• Country Coordinating Mechanism functioning
• Strengthening the involvement of key populations
• Health systems strengthening
• Operational support
• Community, rights and gender considerations
• Managing the performance of grants

In order to receive technical assistance, the Global Fund encourages countries and organizations to contact the organisations that provide technical cooperation directly.

The exception would be requests for technical cooperation on community, rights and gender issues. These requests are facilitated directly by the Global Fund and you can find more on the procedure here.

Both the country’s Country Coordinating Mechanism and the Global Fund country team should be made aware of any requests made by the country.