The proposal for the HIV grant (round 9) of the Global Fund was submitted by Sri Lanka in 2008. According to the original plan, the project was divided into two phases, first from 2010-2012 and the second phase from 2013-2015.

The project goal is to maintain the current low prevalence of HIV in Sri Lanka and improve the quality of life of people infected with and affected by HIV. The three major objectives are

• To increase the scale and quality of comprehensive interventions for most at risk populations.
• To provide care, treatment and support forpeople living with HIV and AIDS.
• To generate and use strategic information for planning and administration of the project.

The focus is on female sex workers (FSW), men who have sex with men (MSM), drug users, beach boys, people living with HIV, prisoners and migrant workers, known to engage in unsafe sexual practices hence making them fall into the most at risk category.Apart from beach boys, all other risk groups are highly concentrated in the Western Province, particularly in Colombo.

Activities of the project include mobilizing high risk groups to change their risky behavior through providing counseling services, education, information, condoms, and most importantly escorting most at risk persons to STD clinics. Field level actions are coordinated, documented and regularly updated and data is fed into a secure centralized database in order to attain the Global Fund’s benchmark of accountability.