Project Info
TB REACH is a Stop TB Partnership platform that supports and evaluates innovative approaches to improve TB case detection and treatment completion. As part of the Wave 7 round of funding, TB REACH supported projects were required to include a gender and women’s empowerment approach as part of their TB intervention.
Gender inequality and discrimination against women, girls, and gender-diverse people is a global phenomenon that is harmful to health. All health responses should seek to minimise inequality and address harmful gender norms. Yet the response to tuberculosis (TB) frequently reinforces harmful gender norms or leaves them unchanged. This includes expectations of free or poorly remunerated labour from community healthcare workers, who tend to be women; exclusion of women from technical and leadership roles; lack of workplace protections for the largely female, lower-tier workforce; lack of provisions (such as toilets) in the workplace for women, lack of appropriate diagnostic processes and procedures for women; and pervasive stigmatization of gender diverse people in healthcare facilities, along with their exclusion in data collection and analysis.[1]
In recognition of the role that TB programming has to play in changing the broader context of gender inequality, TB REACH Wave 7 funded projects (2019 – 2021), supported by Global Affairs Canada, were required to incorporate a women’s empowerment approach in their program interventions.[2] Although the impact of gender on TB infection and disease is relatively well established,[3] approaches that actively support women’s empowerment through TB programming remain underdeveloped. In this context, TB REACH and the Wave 7 funded projects forged new ground in planning and measuring women’s empowerment in TB programming. Valuable lessons can be gained from their experiences
[1] Gender and Tuberculosis Paper, Stop TB Partnership http://www.stoptb.org/assets/documents/global/awards/tbreach/TB-REACH_Gender2021-web.pdf
[2]http://www.stoptb.org/global/awards/tbreach/wave7.asp#:~:text=In%20September%202019%2C%20Stop%20TB,finding%2C%20diagnostics%2C%20and%20care
[3] http://www.stoptb.org/assets/documents/global/awards/tbreach/TB-REACH_Gender2021-web.pdf
