Pillar 2: Expertise – Knowledge for Action
Rationale:
In today’s volatile global health environment, advocates need more than information—they need politically actionable insights that cut through complexity and enable faster, smarter responses. GFAN’s role is to provide timely, accessible insights on Global Fund developments, donor dynamics, and global health financing trends. This must include major shifts in the global health architecture, such as the pending sunsetting strategy of UNAIDS and how to carry forward the key principles of cooperation and partnerships with civil society and communities.
This pillar both elevates GFAN’s knowledge leadership and prioritizes the expertise of community and civil society-generated knowledge in its deliberations and platforms. It includes tracking threats like shrinking ODA, new funding mechanisms, and austerity measures, as well as synthesising community insights into strategic analysis. It includes understanding the roles and responsibilities of global health financing institutions, e.g., foundations, World Bank Pandemic Fund, and donor countries. GFAN’s approach to knowledge generation is collaborative and decentralised, drawing on its regional partners and members to ensure that analysis reflects diverse contexts and realities. Its comparative advantage lies in translating evidence and advocacy insights into concise, politically relevant messages that inform and equip civil society for well-informed and timely advocacy to their decision-makers.
Objective: GFAN’s knowledge products equip advocates with high-impact actionable insights and platform community expertise, linking big-picture shifts to lived realities in ways that inform advocacy and drive change.
Continued from previous strategy: GFAN’s role as a source of trusted policy information continues. It will keep producing briefings, donor resources, and updates on Global Fund processes, similar to its 2021–2025 information-sharing mandate. This includes regular global and regional calls, briefings before Board meetings and major policy shifts, and tailored support to civil society constituencies engaging in governance or strategy spaces.
Expanded focus: This pillar formalises GFAN’s role as a knowledge and analysis platform that translates complex developments into actionable insight and documents the advocacy and multilateral governance expertise of its network for wider use. It embeds sustainability in how knowledge is generated and shared, ensuring consistent access and relevance across languages, regions, and partners. GFAN’s analyses will continue to be co-created across its regional partners and members strengthening the connection between evidence, advocacy and lived experience while avoiding duplication with other actors.
Anticipated Outcomes:
- A more informed, agile network of advocates acts quickly and credibly in defence of the Global Fund and related priorities.
- GFAN is recognised as a trusted source of policy analysis for civil society.
- Greater integration of regional and linguistic perspectives in the generation and use of analysis.
- Stronger links between health financing trends and advocacy priorities.