My (Suraksha WRHCP) election to the Global Fund’s India CCM

I should have written about it a longtime ago. Here is the letter I sent to many friends about my election to the IndiaCCM

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Dear friend(s)

I am overwhelmed by the tremendous support that I have received in getting elected as the representative of Sexual Minorities in the Global Fund’s India CCM for the next 2 years. This has come from those of you who voted for me (69 out of 88 i.e. 78.4% of the polled votes), and the many friends and supporters who helped me:

– file my candidature

– fight against the scuttling of India CCM election process that arbitrarily invalidated my candidature and

– encouraged and helped me through the voting process.

I see this as an endorsement of certain ideas whose time has come. The simple idea of change in India CCM processes. Change to allow for greater transparency, accountability and participation of affected people. Change that allows issues of diverse populations to be voiced and respected. The diversity that I hope to represent is not only the many identities among sexual minorities but also diversity in terms of size, access to funding and thrust of the organisation. I clearly see my mandate to also represent other discriminated communities – sexworkers, drug users, dalits, disabled and others that otherwise seems to have very little or no space in the CCM.

I am serious about pursuing this agenda of change with the support of all of you.

The CCM is an interesting and bold experiment – to open up the funding process, to fund innovative ideas and needs that are not addressed by other funding, to be a multiple stakeholder forum and to work on the principle of consensus. But in reality there seems to be very little role for the civil society agencies in the India CCM process .

There is an urgent need to increase the role and participation of civil society in setting policy and programmatic priorities for the proposals submitted to the fund. In India CCM, opinions of the civil society and affected communities should at least carry equal weight as that of the government, if not more. I need all your support, in advocating for the primary role for the civil society and affected people in India CCM, in spite of it being an uphill task.

It is these objectives that we should together work towards realising. We need to make a joint claim to this process.

I was waiting to hear from the India CCM secretariat about the next steps (I have  received that information very recently), hence the delay in sending this.
I look forward to receiving your suggestions and comments.

In solidarity

Elavarthi Manohar