Message from Elisha

In 2022, Global Health Council launched the first-ever Advocacy in Motion (AIM) Grants to support civil society organization’s (CSOs) advocacy and amplify their voices around issues of health equity.  We are very happy to award a new round of grants in 2024.

We launched our AIM grants because we know that advocacy is an area where CSOs, particularly those in smaller low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), often struggle to mobilize funding; our intention was to help fill this gap. We also know that, even when they do receive funding for advocacy, it is often inflexible with a donor-proscribed purpose and little input from the CSO itself. We didn’t want our grants to follow that dynamic, so we have created greater flexibility this year, empowering winners to use the money in the ways that make the most sense in their national and organizational contexts.

The 2023 grantees valued the opportunity to think comprehensively about advocacy and to learn from one another the most. Having a platform to share their knowledge, best practices, and concerns with one another was extremely useful. In an effort to build on that knowledge exchange, GHC hosted a webinar in which each organization shared their experience and results which was one of our best-attended virtual events last year. We will continue to support this type of knowledge-sharing with 2024 grantees.

Our last round of AIM grantees focused their work on universal health coverage. This round’s focus is on pandemic preparedness and response. We were astonished to receive over 400 applications. After carefully reviewing all of the submissions, we selected six outstanding organizations due to their strong proposals, advocacy experience, and commitment to the field of global health:

• Environmental Women (Colombia)
• Taskeen Health Initiative (Pakistan)
• Accion International para la Salud (Peru)
• No Borders Humanity (Iraq)
• Centre for Youth of Hope (Botswana)

We will be spending more time with each winner over the next few months — hearing more about what they do, the unique challenges they face in their country or region, and the progress they are hoping to make with the support of their AIM grant. In the meantime, we wanted to provide a brief introduction to each of them, which you can read below.

We hope you enjoy meeting these organizations as much as we have. And we look forward to sharing more about them and all the other programs and initiatives that GHC has in store for the next 12 months. Please watch and stay tuned!