Project Goal
PLWH community influence HIV national responses to ensure effective process of transfer of treatment programs from GFATM to governmental funding with special emphasis on procurement and sustainable supply of ARV medicines to all who need it.
Tasks of the project
PLWH community contributes to national policies regarding access to ARV treatment through evidence-based advocacy for increasing national funding for ARV drug procurement and adoption of TRIPS flexibilities.
Activity 1. Rapid assessment on countries TRIPS+ adoption status. Work performed through ECUO focal points as well as through virtual work meetings and distance consultations.
Activity 2. ECUO/project partners work to sensitize the host country authorities on the importance of the TRIPS agreement:
Lobbying and raising awareness of Members of Parliament(s) on TRIPS flexibilities and bringing project findings/outputs on parliamentary agenda: Oral/Written questions to the parliament as well as relevant executive branches.
Facilitate development of normative legal documents (ex. Patent law in Ukraine) to allow import of ARVs and other life-saving medicines in the interest of public health, respecting IP rights but exercising maximum allowable flexibilities.
Activity 3. Regional Advocacy campaign «Health can be bought. Price is included in budget!» aimed at increased public financing for high-quality ARV medicines efficient procurement and at making changes to country legislation to enable optimization of HIV treatment.
Activity 4. Advocacy for the participation of PLWH in the development of the country proposal for the Global Fund for 2015 — 2017 (Georgia & Moldova), with major emphasis on the development and endorsement of the country sustainability strategy for the ART patients enrolled through the GF grants to be picked up/transferred to the public funding.
Activity 5. Joint advocacy actions with NGOs with human rights expertise and other NGOs responding to HIV, in the form of press release and press meetings, petition(s) and request letter(s) for draft legislation, in order to attract public attention to increased access to treatment and wide utilization of TRIPS flexibilities.
Activity 6. Enforce Ukrainian patent reform by providing inputs to legal drafting and lobbying its approval by the relevant Parliament Committee in order to protect legal framework from TRIPS-plus provisions.
Activity 7. Nation-wide awareness campaign on ART availability and treatment adherence targeting both, people living with HIV and general population of Ukraine.
Activity 8. Identification of key/critical activities in the countries that need to maintain and strengthen on the regional level by ECUO.
Activity 9. Further strengthen collaborative ties with the Medicines Patent Pool, to ensure that civil society concerns are taken on board of this International body, while undertaking discussions with pharmaceutical companies to obtain access-friendly licenses. Continued advocacy from PLWH treatment advocates is important to ensure that more pharmaceutical companies are willing to license to the Pool on better terms and conditions.
Terms
February 2014 — May 2015 (16 months)