Regional Meeting for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, organized by The Global Fund at Sofia, Bulgaria
December 3rd, 2009
During November 24-26 took place in Sofia, Bulgaria the Regional Meeting for Easter Europe and Central Asia of the health programs recipient countries from The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GF).
The event gathered representatives of governmental institutions, Principal Recipients, affected communities and vulnerable groups, partners and nongovernmental organizations involved in HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria prevention and control programs.
The 3 days of sessions, presentations, workshops and debates allowed enhancing understanding of the Global Fund's evolving architecture and providing updated information on Secretariat guidelines and processes. Discuss optimization of CCM functioning and oversight, and compliance for grant eligibility.Moreover, the organizers aimed to:
- facilitate best practices exchange between the region countries, especially considering the HIV and TB comparable epidemiological characteristics,
- identify each country's existent difficulties,
- strengthen the civil society's role in controlling the three major diseases: HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria.
The attendees had the opportunity to participate to the debates generated by present interest topics:
- broadening and improving the quality of the prevention intervention aimed for vulnerable groups,increasing the adherence to the antiretroviral and anti tuberculosis,
- strengthening and broadening the TB and MDR-TB (tuberculosis multidrug-resistant) prevention and control programs,
- coordinating and improving the activities aiming an integrated approach of HIV/TB.
The Romanian delegation that participated to the Regional Meeting included representatives of the 6th Round's Principal Recipient, Romanian Angel Appeal Foundation, sub-recipient institutions and organizations, partners and CCM members.
The Regional meeting was preceded by a workshop attended by actors involved in HIV/AIDS prevention and insurance of assistance and support services for Injecting drug users (IDU) and also representatives of the affected communities. The purpose of this workshop was to identify the challenges and difficulties faced by the organizations and institutions carrying out IDU projects and interventions and also to find solutions to these problems.
For more information on the event that took place in Sofia can be found accessing http://www.theglobalfund.org/
