SOS Youth and Challenges (SOS JD), a youth-led organization, completed a 12-month GFF-funded project to strengthen youth and civil society leadership in advancing the GFF Investment Case. SOS JD also successfully established a new CSO platform for mobilizing civil society and youth engagement with national-level GFF processes, including training civil society and youth in monitoring and accountability. Through this platform, SOS JD ensured that civil society and youth also had ongoing, meaningful engagement with the Ministry of Health as they defined the roles of public and private actors in delivering on the investment case.

In order to coordinate the engagement of civil society and youth in the development of the Investment Case, SOS JD worked with the Organization for New Initiatives in Development and Health (ONIDS)—another GFF-funded partner— to establish a new CSO platform for developing tools and resources and sharing knowledge to improve the capacity of CSOs to contribute to national policies and investments supported by the GFF. Following an election among members, SOS JD was selected as the platform’s secretary general. The new platform quickly established links with the CSO GFF platform in Chad, which was established in 2022 under another GFF grant, to share knowledge about domestic resource mobilization and the implementation of Investment Cases. Through the platform, SOS JD provided training to members on knowledge management and health sector alignment.

In Burkina-Faso, the development of the GFF Investment Case is led by the Reproductive Health Technical Group. Having received a grant from the GFF, SOS JD was able to secure a seat on the newly established sub-committee of the Technical Group in charge of strengthening alignment in the health sector. SOS JD represented the CSO GFF coalition on the committee and mobilized civil society engagement in Burkina Faso’s “One Plan One Budget One Report” alignment process. Throughout 2023, SOS JD engaged with government officials, technical and financial partners, and the private health sector and facilitated the participation of civil society in a series of workshops to rate the level of alignment of different actors and initiatives in the health sector with the Investment Case.

SOS JD concluded its project by representing the GFF CSO Coalition in a workshop that brought together representatives of the government, members of the CSO GFF platform, and technical and financial partners, including the World Bank country office and the GFF. This convening marked the culmination of previous workshops where each stakeholder independently rated the levels of alignment within the health sector. During this final workshop, participants reviewed and discussed alignment scores from various stakeholders and developed and action plan for achieving full alignment of Burkina Faso’s health sector with the GFF investment case.