We are a member of the Civil Society Forum (CSF) on HIV, hepatitis (HEP) and tuberculosis (TB) and a part of the coordination team. Our Forum comes together twice a year at the premises of the European Commission, DG Santé in Luxembourg; aiming to facilitate the exchange of information between civil society organisations, the EC, supranational agencies such as WHO, UNAIDS, ECDC and EMCDDA.

This year’s first meeting took place on 17 – 18 June. Since EU elected a new parliament, a new Commission is about to be installed, and a new, multi-annual framework for the EU budget is currently under negotiation, leading us towards a crucial period for advocacy for priorities such as keeping health issues and related budgets on the agenda. The Commission shared its efforts to support and monitor the measures to reach the sustainable development goals, to which the states around the globe committed themselves.

On June 17th, CSF members informed each other about recent and upcoming conferences, their focus, impact, the created advocacy opportunities for integrated health policies, and developments at the country/key population level.
We, as C-EHRN, shared information about the European and the International Harm Reduction Conferences, the upcoming Lisbon Addition, and the Hepatitis Community Summit, organised by the network and brought up the launch of our monitoring tool for harm reduction in the EU. (Read our interview about the tool HERE)

The CSF established four working groups last year, working on advocacy issues such as sustained funding, affordability of medicines, addressing stigma and human right violations as well as the implementation of the combination prevention for HIV. Reports about activities and outcomes can be found here.

On the next day, the Eurasian Harm Reduction Network organised an entire morning about the funding of the HIV/Hep/TB response in Central and Eastern Europe. The intervention of Global Fund representatives – who joined the session by video stream –  was remarkable as the withdraw of the Global Fund in countries remains a significant problem for sustainability.