Publications & Tools

“One of the main findings, as detailed in the recent FCAA and Elton John AIDS Foundation “Converging Epidemics: COVID-19, HIV & Inequality” report, was that HIV-related intermediary funders are best positioned to provide flexible, strategic support for the most critical needs of community members and community-led groups working at the intersection of HIV, human rights and racial justice.
The purpose of this follow-up briefing paper is to help make the case for greater investment in HIV-related intermediaries, particularly those that are community-rooted and community-led.
It explores their role, added value and impact, and key challenges and needs. It also looks at the strategic and practical considerations that donors who currently support intermediaries take into account when developing relationships with their intermediary partners.
Finally, this briefing paper also offers new benchmark data to contextualize the level of HIV-related philanthropy moving to intermediary and community-rooted funding organizations.
We hope that the case studies and insights from interviews conducted and data analyzed for this paper will encourage donors — whether public or private, large or small — to invest in community-rooted funders and/or adopt some of the community-rooted practices described within.
A series of recommendations for putting this into practice is included at the conclusion of this briefing paper.”

Read the full report.
Read the individual report case studies
Initiative Sankofa d’Afrique de l’Ouest
Southern AIDS Coalition and the Contigo Fund
Global Network of Young People Living with HIV and Advocates for Youth
Red Umbrella Fund
Read the accompanying report: Converging Epidemics: COVID-19, HIV and Inequality

“At the time of Mama Cash?s founding, prostitution and pornography were most often interpreted by members of the women’s movement solely as forms of oppression and the exploitation of women. (During the 1980s, people mostly used the word “prostitute”. After the publication in 1987 of Carol Leigh?s anthology Sex Work: Writings By Women In The Sex Industry, the broader term “sex worker” gained in popularity within the women?s rights movement). Mama Cash?s position was that women in the sex industry have the same right as all other women to sexual and economic self-determination, an independent and legally accepted existence and protection against discrimination and violence. This position has always guided Mama Cash?s activities and has led her to support both Dutch and international sex workers’ rights movements. Over the years, she has managed to bridge the gap between activists in the field and the international donor community and has continued to be a leader in the discussion about sex work.”

The investigation was presented on December 9, 2020, to commemorate the International Day of Human Rights Defenders and International Human Rights Day. It is a complete mapping of sex work legislation and sex workers’ political participation in the region.

2022 report “Myth-Busting the Swedish Model: The Evidence Debunking 10 Key Claims of Client Criminalisation” which find that “the benefits of the Swedish model by its proponents are not supported by the evidence. Sex workers are not decriminalised – a finding corroborated by an Amnesty International report on the situation in Ireland – and there have been rises in cases of human trafficking, with victims of this trade made even more vulnerable within a system of criminalisation.” This finding is supported Swedish sex worker-led organisation Fuckf?rbundet (member of ESWA and NSWP) in their 2019 report Twenty Years of Failing Sex Workers.

Red Umbrella Fund Coordinator Paul-Gilbert Colletaz writes, ” Sex workers have suffered under the pandemic because most are excluded from both private and public support. Donors can change that.”

The paper covers various areas of law and law enforcement practices that disproportionately impact sex workers, including immigration laws, policing of public spaces, anti-LGBTQ laws, HIV criminalisation and religious codes. A Community Guide is also available.

This is a 5-module toolkit for women activists and defenders?everywhere. “It is part of our work on offering activist tools for the political moment. This toolkit takes a topic often handled in very technical and individually oriented ways (safe houses, window bars, panic buttons) to a feminist and movement approach (contextual awareness, risk analysis in the context of power and gender dynamics, linked strategies for organizing and safety, etc). It links risk analysis for activists to power analysis, gender impacts and movement strategies for greater safety in risk contexts.”

Participatory Grantmakers Community is building a library of video resources for participatory grantmakers and funders with questions about participatory grantmaking. Participatory Grantmaking 101 as well as topics around operationalising sharing the power and conflicts of interest within grantmaking are included in their growing selections.

“In order to show a commitment to human rights, civil liberties, and sound technology policy, it?s imperative that PayPal and Venmo provide transparency to their users… The ACLU has joined 22 other civil rights groups in demanding a stop to PayPal and Venmo’s practices that harm vulnerable communities by shutting people out without due process.

Cora Colt, co-founder of Lysistrata Mutual Care Collective & Fund, writes, “Sex workers and other marginalised communities are in desperate need of rights and direct cash assistance, no strings attached. Everything else is a distraction”

This marks the 20th annual resource tracking publication from Funders Concerned About AIDS (FCAA) on philanthropic support to address HIV and AIDS. The report relies on grants lists submitted directly by 72 funders (representing 92% of the total HIV-related philanthropic funding tracked by FCAA), as well as publicly sourced grants information from funder websites, grants databases, annual reports, U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Form 990 returns, and Candid’s Foundation Maps grants database (representing the remaining 8% of funding in the report). This report specifically captures HIV-related funding from philanthropic organizations around the world; it excludes any government funding to address HIV and AIDS, including domestic government, bilateral, and multilateral support.

This Policy Brief was developed in collaboration with Accountability International and funded by Ford Foundation. It provides an overview of issues impacting decriminalisation of sex work across multiple regions in Africa.

“Measures that restrict sex workers? movement and so-called “anti-trafficking” measures are connected. Sex work and trafficking are often conflated in law, policy and practice, including in border control and policing. Most of the discussion on trafficking in international policy spaces has ignored the impact of anti-trafficking laws and policies on sex workers’ mobility. Barriers to sex workers’ mobility make it harder for them to engage with politics and civil issues and impede their right to associate and organise. Sex workers around the world organise collectively to advocate for their human, health, and labour rights.”

Societal stigma and punitive legal frameworks often severely impede key populations’ rights to raise families free from interference and discrimination. The experiences of key population groups (gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, people who use drugs, sex workers, and transgender people) are diverse, and are informed by varying levels of criminalisation, stigma and discrimination, and individual factors such as socioeconomic status, gender, race, and health status. This paper explores these challenges, and provides recommendations for policymakers.
This Policy Brief is a joint effort by three global key population-led networks (INPUD, MPact, and NSWP) to bring attention to the lived experiences of key populations and their families, and highlight the ways that stigma and discrimination inform these experiences. A Community Guide is also available.

Amnesty International’s Policy on State Obligations to Respect, Protect and Fulfil the Human Rights of Sex Workers. “This policy has been developed in recognition of the high rates of human rights abuses experienced globally by individuals who engage in sex work; a term that Amnesty International uses only in regard to consensual exchanges between adults. It identifies the most prominent barriers to the realization of sex workers? human rights and underlines states’ obligations to address them.”