Pillar 3: Advocacy – Strong and Well-resourced Global Health Institutions 

Rationale:
The Global Fund is not only a financing mechanism—where norms around inclusion, equity, and ownership are contested. Civil society and communities must have a role in how the Fund evolves, how its strategies are implemented, and how it is held accountable.

At the same time, the current global health architecture is failing to meet community needs and increasingly, more civil society and community-led organizations are expressing concern about the Global Fund despite its evolution and the promise of its strategy. Models of international cooperation remain largely donor-driven, charity-based, and unsustainable. This moment of disruption offers an urgent opportunity to transform—not only the Global Fund, but the broader systems in which it operates.

This pillar integrates GFAN’s legacy in resource mobilisation and Replenishment advocacy with a bold, future-oriented agenda. GFAN can play a vital role in co-creating new visions for global solidarity grounded in justice, equity, and sustainability.

Objective: Ensure that the Global Fund’s policies, strategy, and implementation remain inclusive, transparent, accountable, and gender-just while coordinating global advocacy to mobilise ambitious and equitable financing. GFAN will also contribute to civil society–led dialogue on how future global-health financing models can reflect justice for all genders, sustainability and shared responsibility.

Continued from previous strategy: The heart of GFAN’s work—mobilising financial support for and advocating for civil society and community priorities at the Global Fund—remains unchanged. This strategy deepens GFAN’s role as both a defender and reformer of global health institutions and the processes and dialogues that shape them. It recognises that a well-functioning Global Fund, one that is inclusive, transparent, and responsive to community priorities, is essential to achieving health equity.

Expanded focus: GFAN will selectively and proactively engage in adjacent discussions on the future of global health cooperation, always grounded in its core mandate and membership priorities.

Its role is to bring principles of partnership, equity and accountability – which are most well-formed in the Global Fund governance and implementation model – into those global debates where GFAN’s experience and voice can add value, including advocacy for equitable and community-focused global health funding, to defend a strong funding floor. GFAN will carry lessons on inclusive governance into discussions about new financing instruments when those risk duplicating or undermining the Global Fund. Through critical discussions, GFAN will strengthen its advocacy across strategy, implementation, resource mobilisation, and governance spaces to ensure the Fund delivers on its mandate.

Through strategic collaboration with the regional GFAN partners and other coalitions, GFAN will grow its advocacy by uplifting expertise that exists within its network of advocates and will seek out new expertise to diversify our resource mobilization focus beyond donor mobilization into areas such as domestic resource mobilization, debt-for-health, and other debt swaps and tax justice linkages that are increasingly becoming relevant to GFANs vision.

Anticipated Outcomes:

• Greater political and financial commitment to a fully funded Global Fund that reflects and responds to community-defined priorities.
• Stronger civil society and community influence in shaping Global Fund accountability, policy, strategy and governance reforms.
• Civil society recognised as essential architects of global health cooperation and financing models.
• GFAN positioned as a proactive and leading voice in transforming the global health architecture toward solidarity, justice, and accountability.