At the 54th Board meeting, the Global Fund reopened a debate on an issue it often champions as central yet still struggles to secure: financing for community systems. The Secretariat paper on “Strategic shifts for GC8” sets out a four-pillar framework - Readiness, Integration, Resilience, Protection - intended to move beyond fragmented support and embed community responses in more durable arrangements, linked to national systems. Stakeholder statements broadly welcome the intent: communities remain, in many settings, the only effective gateway to populations left out of formal services. Yet a concern runs through the inputs: by leaning so heavily on integration and domestic financing, is the Global Fund at risk of building a conditional form of sustainability - one that depends on states that are sometimes weak, and at times openly hostile to certain populations?

A clear architecture, but an implicit politics

The Secretariat paper starts from an accurate diagnosis: epidemics are increasingly concentrated in hard-to-reach pockets - key populations, migrants, people in detention, and residents of precarious urban settings - where trust and proximity can matter as much as commodities. It proposes differentiating transition contexts (long-, medium-, and short-term) and adds an acute crisis scenario. This nuance was appreciated: several stakeholders see it as progress beyond one-size-fits-all approaches. One stakeholder, in particular, endorses the four pillars and mechanisms such as social contracting, while stressing that allocations must prevent community services from being crowded out as budgets tighten. Another highlights a crucial point: during transitions, what the state forgets first is often what communities deliver.

But the framework’s elegance also masks a risk: treating sustainability primarily as a matter of tools, when it is also - often first and foremost - a matter of power. In Africa, the survival of community services depends as much on civic space, laws, stigma, and security as it does on the quality of financing mechanisms. A technically coherent strategy can fail if it underestimates these political determinants.

Integrate without dissolving: a knife-edge

The proposed pivot is integration: moving community responses from aid-funded “projects” to services that are recognized, planned, and purchased through national mechanisms (contracting, payments, sometimes performance-based). The Global Fund points to examples (Ghana for community TB, Nigeria for harmonization, Thailand and the Philippines through health coverage arrangements) to show that absorption is possible.

Stakeholders, however, introduce a political warning: integration can become dilution. Several statements note that overly rapid integration into generalist primary health care platforms can reduce access for key and criminalized populations. This is not an abstract debate. In some countries, the state does not want to finance services for groups it stigmatizes. In such contexts, “integrating” can mean “normalizing”- making services less safe, less confidential, and ultimately less accessible.

Against this backdrop, the Secretariat rules out two options: direct funding to community organizations and ring-fencing community funding within allocations. The rationale is coherent - avoiding bypassing CCMs and national systems - but it opens a question that Germany and a stakeholder raise plainly: what happens when the state does not fund - or does not want to fund? A stakeholder welcomes the Rapid Community Protection Fund (RCPF) but questions whether its scale is adequate and calls for more robust tools in contexts of criminalization. Put simply: if integration is the highway, what credible detours exist when the highway is politically closed?

Protection: the truth of urgency, and the fragility of means

The most politically revealing pillar is Protection, notably through the Rapid Community Protection Fund (RCPF): rapid financing to respond to acute crises that threaten access for key populations, with very short activation timelines and a limited duration (three months). The signal is significant: the Global Fund acknowledges that access can be destroyed by violence, intimidation, raids, and fear - not only by a lack of money.

Yet stakeholder positions converge on a blunt assessment: the mechanism looks fit-for-purpose, but under-resourced. One stakeholder asks for more detail on concrete measures to reduce discrimination and service disruptions, especially in a GC8 shaped by fiscal constraint. And behind “modern” contracting lies a familiar risk in Africa: when public payments are delayed, community organizations carry the cash-flow burden until exhaustion. The result can be a façade of sustainability - on paper, the state is the purchaser; in practice, the community becomes the creditor.

Stakeholders propose safeguards: clearer signals in allocation letters, a strengthened role for community-led monitoring, and technical support to CCMs. UNAIDS underscores the centrality of rights-based responses, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, and the need to protect investments in “communities / human rights / gender” in a period of scarcity. The message is clear: without political protection, financial protection will not be enough.

Conclusion

The Global Fund is right to treat community systems as health infrastructure - not as an optional add-on. The four-pillar framework brings welcome coherence, and stakeholders broadly support its direction. But they also highlight critical blind spots: integration that dissolves, transitions that forget, under-financed protection, and above all the absence of a fully convincing answer for contexts where the state refuses to purchase services for stigmatized populations.

Ultimately, this debate is not merely technical. It is a test of strategic courage. A bridge to sustainability is only meaningful if it also carries those whom the official road excludes. If GC8 bets everything on integration without building credible pathways for moments when integration is politically blocked, “communities at the centre” risks remaining an elegant promise - and a vulnerable one.