The Stop TB Partnership (STBP) opened the call for proposals for Round 11 of its Challenge Facility for Civil Society (CFCS), with the largest ever amount of USD 9 million to be awarded to Tuberculosis (TB) affected communities and civil society to strengthen advocacy, partnerships, and work towards addressing social justice, discrimination, stigma, human rights and accountability within the TB Response.
Challenge Facility for Civil Society Round 11 will build on past investments and leverage new and available evidence to ensure TB is part of the national, regional and global agenda through advanced partnerships and advocacy. The investments are focused on ensuring the strong presence of TB on national health agendas, funding opportunities, community-led engagement, human rights, and gender equality to save lives. CFCS Round 11 will be the biggest ever round with USD 9 million in funding due to the generous support from USAID and support from the Global Fund. Last year’s Round 10 consisted of USD 7.5 million.
This year will be an important one where the 2018 United Nations High-Level Meeting (UN HLM) on TB Targets and Commitments are expected to be achieved ahead of the next UN HLM in 2023. In light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, now in its third year and the overall devastating impact it has and continues to have on global TB efforts, TB remains a marginalized, unknown and severely underfunded disease. Specific advocacy efforts at the national and subnational levels are essential to ensure an increase in TB funding as well as increased investments in community-led engagement, human rights, and gender equality in TB. These specific areas have been identified by countries as priorities in the UNHLM on TB Political Declaration and emphasized in the TB communities report A Deadly Divide: TB Commitments Vs. TB Realities.
There is now a significantly enhanced evidence base for Community, Rights and Gender (CRG) in TB – generated particularly from CRG Assessments, Community-led Monitoring and the recent analysis, providing a clear image of common CRG dimensions and challenges across countries.
“We are on an amazing upward trend with rounds 10 and 11 providing funding opportunities of more than USD16 million over the last 2 years. For us and especially for all our communities and civil society partners, this is unprecedented. It is time to show the world what can be achieved when resources are being made available, so we can ensure that we have the TB response we want,” said Dr. Lucica Ditiu, Executive Director of the Stop TB Partnership.
Who can apply?
New partners and existing Challenge Facility for Civil Society grantees working at grassroots, national, regional, and global levels from eligible countries, can apply through one of two available funding tracks. Networks of people affected by TB are particularly encouraged to apply.
Track 1: Applicants from the following countries can apply:
| Bangladesh | Ghana | Kyrgyzstan | Nigeria | South Africa | Uzbekistan |
| Cambodia | India | Malawi | Pakistan | Tajikistan | Vietnam |
| Cameroon | Indonesia | Mozambique | Papua New Guinea | Tanzania | Zambia |
| DR Congo | Kazakhstan | Myanmar | Peru | Ukraine | Zimbabwe |
| Ethiopia | Kenya | Nepal | Philippines | Uganda |
Applicants must be nationally registered non-governmental, community-based, civil society, or affected TB community networks or organizations with experience working on TB and CRG.
Applicants must be registered non-governmental, community-based, civil society or affected TB community networks or organizations, who support the above regions, working on TB and CRG. Global and regional organizations should be based and/or predominantly work in high TB burden countries and have a demonstrably established network of country and other regional partners.
Available funding
Track 1: applications from new partners can be submitted for up to USD 100,000.
Applications for existing CFCS Round 10 grantees can be submitted for up to USD 150,000.
Track 2: applications can be submitted for up to USD 200,000.
How to apply?
All applications for both Track 1 and Track 2 must be submitted using the Online Application, accessible here.
Application Guidelines, accessible here, and a CFCS Round 11 Information Note accessible here provide information to support the application process.
The deadline to submit applications is 14 March 2022 (18:00 Central European Time).
Additional Information
For more information on eligibility and selection criteria as well as CRG and the work of the STBP please see the CFCS Information Note.
Should you have any questions on the application process please send these to cfcs@stoptb.org by 23 February 2022 – all questions and answers will be shared publicly on the CFCS website and application site on 25 February 2022.
