MSMGF Begins to Plan for the Next 5 Years by Looking 25 Years Ahead
The global landscape for HIV and MSM is dramatically and
rapidly changing. Reductions and disparities in funding for community based
programs led by MSM or serving MSM are evident. Incidence of HIV among MSM in
many parts of the world remain unabated; criminalization, stigma,
discrimination, and violence directed at MSM continue to undermine advances in
diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of HIV; polarization of priority issues
within the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities creates a lag in
momentum within the HIV sector; and socio-political landscapes continue to create
unsteady footing, further compromising our ability to fully get ahead of HIV.
These trends and evolving context are only evident through
hindsight. While a common practice is to conduct strategic planning for the
short-term future (3 to 5 years), less common is an effort to cast ourselves
farther into the future for long term planning.
To anticipate where the MSM, HIV, and human rights movements
might be in another 25 years, the Global Forum on MSM & HIV (MSMGF) carried
out a foresight scenario planning process with several dozen of its
stakeholders and partners. MSMGF began
with a simple but fundamental question: “What will the global MSM and HIV
movements look like in 25 years?” The scenario planning process and its
outcomes are documented in MSMGF’s latest publication, A Fundamental Shift: The Future of the Global MSM and HIV Movement.
MSMGF chose to adopt a two axis method for envisioning the
future. The method generated four
contrasting scenarios by placing a major factor influencing the future on each
axis, which cross to form four quadrants.
We chose a horizontal axis that juxtaposes two ways to focus action,
with sexual health on one end and social solidarity on the other end. On the
vertical axis, we juxtapose structural/systemic actions on one end, and
services/program on the other.
MSMGF will use this document as the basis for its next
5-year strategic plan, which is expected to be completed in early 2016. With knowledge about several other planning
processes currently underway, we invite our colleagues to use this document as
a resource for those efforts.
Download the full PDF here.
Read the previous blog post about our Strategic Planning Meeting where we developed this document here.
We would love to hear what you think. Happy reading!
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MEDIA CONTACT
Jack Mackenroth
jmackenroth@msmgf.org
About Us: MSMGF has worked since 2006 to encourage
targeted, tailored, better-resourced, and rights- based sexual health services
for gay men and other men who have sex with men (MSM) worldwide through its
advocacy and technical support work. As a global network, MSMGF has
successfully influenced HIV responses at the local level through shifts in
global-level policies and has effectively utilized public health as an entry
point for advancing the human rights of LGBT people. MSMGF currently supports
programs in 15 countries.