Eurasian Regional Consortium
The Eurasian Regional Consortium (ERC) is regional collective of networks working to advance the health and human rights of inadequately served populations (ISPs) in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
| Grantee type: Regional Consortium |
| Grant: $1,463,189 |
| Grant period: 2016-2018 |
| Lead organization: Eurasian Harm Reduction Association (EHRA) |
Partner organizations:
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For 2016-2018, the ERC consisted of the Eurasian Harm Reduction Association (EHRA), Eurasian Coalition on Male Health (ECOM) and the East European and Central Asian Union of PLWH Organizations (ECUO). Together these networks have over 300 participating organizations from all countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
- The Eastern Europe and Central Asia region (EECA) has one of the world’s fastest growing HIV epidemics, with 1.4 million people living with HIV and an additional 130,000 people contracting the virus every year. Approximately one in four HIV-positive people are undiagnosed and don’t know of their infection, and only a third of all HIV-positive people have accessed HIV treatment. The EECA region also has other significant HIV-related health issues such as high rates of tuberculosis (TB), hepatitis C (HCV) and sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
- The burden of these health issues is disproportionately borne by key populations such as people who inject drugs, prisoners, gay men, transgender people, sex workers, and migrants, who collectively represent more than 95% of new HIV infections in Eastern Europe and Central Asia each year. Yet according to UNAIDS, only 3% of total HIV expenditures in the region go for programming focused on these key populations. Total government health spending in large middle-income countries such as Kazakhstan is less than US$ 1000 per person per year and yet most countries in the region are considered too wealthy to be eligible for international development assistance.
- Meanwhile, in several EECA countries, key populations are facing increased violence and abuse, and constraints on freedoms of expression and organizing. Ten countries criminalize or penalize people engaged in sex work, all have restrictive laws and policies about drug use and possession, and at least seven countries restrict provision of services without parental consent to adolescents younger than 16 years of age. The result: key populations cannot access quality health services or protection or redress for human rights violations, and therefore continue to experience worsening HIV epidemics and other health disparities.
- To change this situation, the capacity of networks of inadequately served populations (ISPs) to organize and advocate is central to improving access to health information and services and to work with, and advocate with, EECA governments to affirm and protect people’s rights and create and fund appropriate services.
Contribution to regional community advocacy plan development © EHRN
RCF funding 2016-2018
The Eurasian Regional Consortium (ERC) received US$ 1.5 million in funding from the Robert Carr Fund during 2016-2018. This funding was allocated to both core and strategic program costs across all three networks (EHRA, ECOM and ECUO) to help build the capacity of each network and to support collective action across the region. In 2019, the Robert Carr Fund awarded an additional US$ 1.76 million in funding to the Eurasian Regional Consortium (with a changed but overlapping set of organizations) for continuation and expansion of its work.
Geographic coverage
The Eurasian Regional Consortium (ERC) is a regional network that convenes and supports organizations and individuals in more than 25 countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The three networks of the ERC — Eurasian Harm Reduction Association (EHRA), Eurasian Coalition on Male Health (ECOM), East European and Central Asian Union of PLWH Organizations (ECUO) — are led by steering committee members from 19 countries, namely: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Slovakia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
Population coverage
The Eurasian Regional Consortium (ERC) supports the empowerment, leadership, health and rights of all inadequately served populations (ISPs) with a focus on people living with HIV, people who inject drugs, gay men and other men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender people. Importantly, the Eurasian Regional Consortium has worked to support collaboration across all of these ISP communities with joint trainings, support for coalition building, work to align advocacy priorities and shared understanding of population needs, and efforts to advance a collective agenda and advocacy voice related to human rights environments, service accessibility, and funding for health and human rights.
Activities 2016-2018
With RCF funding in 2016-2018, the Eurasian Regional Consortium (ERC) supported regional and national organizing and advocacy for human rights and health services, as well as organizational capacity building by each of the three networks and their member organizations. For example:
The consortium supported national budget monitoring and other community-led research, policy work and advocacy by producing a guidance documents and a toolkit and then helping national organizations to implement and build experience in this work.
The consortium helped to document the costs of criminalization of key populations in each of 26 EECA countries and then led the implementation of a regional campaign “Chase the virus not people” with nine regional networks.
The consortium partners EHRA, ECOM and ECUO each strengthened their governance and management systems, and supported national organizations in Armenia, Estonia, Kyrgyzstan and other countries to build inclusive coalitions involving all key populations.
Results 2016-2018
The results of the work of the Eurasian Regional Consortium (ERC) include:
- Network strength and influence: With sustained RCF funding, EHRA, ECOM and ECUO built capacity to implement and manage multi-country programs. With this improved capacity, these networks were then successful in applying for and receiving a Global Fund regional grant to support work with national governments to sustain and improve HIV programs in the region.
- Human rights: With sustained advocacy by national coalitions supported by the ERC consortium, in Armenia, lawmakers reduced criminal penalties for drug possession, and in other countries, groundwork was established for improved laws and policies to reduce criminalization and service barriers for inadequately served populations.
- Resource accountability: Sustained advocacy by national coalitions also led to new government commitments to fund HIV-related services in Armenia (funding for opioid substitution treatment (OST) and HIV treatment programs), and Kyrgyzstan (HIV care and benefits for PLHIV and their families).
- Furthermore, the Armenian government included transgender people as a focus of its upcoming HIV bio-behavioral surveillance (IBBS) study thereby potentially producing evidence for improved HIV services for transgender people.