Community-Led Health Programs Benefit People Impacted by HIV

A new report co-authored by amfAR and Data, Et cetera, provides evidence that health programs—including HIV programs—designed and delivered by communities work.

Community-led organizations are critical partners in health service delivery, the report confirms, and shows why and how community-led implementation of HIV services should be protected and strengthened. The analysis is especially pertinent in an era of donor budget cuts and political pressures that threaten to deprioritize community programming.

Drawing on community-based consultations, surveys, and case studies, the SCOPE (Support for Community Organizations & Priorities for Empowerment and Impact) study examined community-led implementation of programs supported by The Global Fund. The Global Fund, the world’s largest multilateral funder of global health grants in low- and middle-income countries, brings together governments, communities, civil society, health workers, and the private sector to deliver healthcare.

Co-authored by Jennifer Sherwood, Director of Research, Public Policy, amfAR, the study found that many interventions—particularly for key and vulnerable populations, such as men who have sex with men, transgender people, sex workers, and people who inject drugs, among others—cannot be meaningfully implemented without community leadership. However, community-led organizations face systemic hurdles, including legal and bureaucratic barriers, lack of direct funding pathways, delayed payments, and exclusion from decision-making spaces like national committees that submit Global Fund grant applications and oversee grants on behalf of their countries.

The report provides concrete recommendations to support community-prioritized activities in funding requests and create new channels for direct funding, among other strategies.

Read the full report, “Community-Led Implementation of Global Fund Programs: Evidence from the SCOPE Study,” here.