The mandate of the Civil Society Action Team (CSAT) is to strengthen civil society engagement in every component of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (the Global Fund). The International Council of AIDS Service Organizations (ICASO) is the global host of CSAT and coordinates the initiative internationally. CSAT, through ICASO and the Regional Hubs , notifies and provides advice and analysis on upcoming Calls for Proposals or 'Rounds'. The Community Action section is focused on helping communities in mobilizing around emerging policy, advocacy and time-sensitive funding issues, such as strengthening the involvement of key populations in Country Coordinating Mechanisms and other aspects of the Global Fund's country-driven, performance-based grant system.

EANNASO serves as the sub-regional hub for CSAT eastern Africa. Under the signed Memorandum of Understanding with the regional hub - the African Council of AIDS Service Organisations (AfriCASO), EANNASO undertakes joint work around resource mobilisation, advocacy and mutual support in brokering technical support for CSOs.

During the Global Fund call for proposals in R8 and R9, EANNASO organised three regional meetings for CSO actors working on the CCMs, Principle Recipients and Key Sub-Recipients as well as Coordinators of national networks of AIDS Service organisations. Each of these meetings were timely and made a unique contribution towards strengthening CSO engagement in Global Fund activities in their respective countries. EANNASO has continued to share and coordinate information sharing in the region. These meetings were followed by increased CSO attempts either to apply for Technical Support, or to apply to be Principle Recipients during the R8 call for proposals as follows;

• Kenya AIDS NGOs Consortium (KANCO) sought technical support from the UNAIDS-Technical Support Facility (TSF-EA) and the Open Society Initiative East Africa (OSIEA) to apply as a Principle Recipient (PR) in this round.
• Rwanda NGO Forum on HIV and AIDS successfully mobilised Civil Society Organisations (CSO) representatives on the Country Coordination Mechanism (CCM) who successfully advocated for submission of a CSO-focused proposal for HIV and AIDS in round 8. The forum successfully obtained technical support from UNAIDS-Geneva for proposal development.
• Both the National Alliance of AIDS NGOs in Burundi- an umbrella of CSOs in Burundi (Alliance Burundais de Lutte Contre le SIDA - ABS) and the Network of People Living with HIV-PLWHIV (Reseau Burundais des Personnes vivant avec le VIH Plus-RBP+) applied as Principle Recipients in R8. RBP+ was selected as PR and ABS as a lead Sub-Recipient (SR).

EANNASO advocates for CSO capacity strengthening. The regional network will continue to align its core mandate and programmes to major AIDS funding mechanisms like Global Fund on one hand and Technical support providers on the other hand.

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