Proposals must clearly address the key criteria outlined below to be considered responsive to this Call for Proposals. The full call text provides further elaboration and detailed guidance on each requirement.

Strategic Fit: Proposals must align with accelerating cervical cancer elimination through secondary prevention in LMICs and contribute to WHO elimination targets.

National Alignment: Activities should support national cervical cancer strategies, documented plans, and domestic financing commitments or clear pathways to secure them.

Country Readiness & Equity: Country selection should reflect high burden, readiness to implement, and strong potential to advance equity for underserved and marginalized populations

Innovation & Cost Optimization: Proposals should introduce and scale innovative, cost‑efficient tools and delivery models that improve affordability, coverage, and quality.

Community & Civil Society Engagement: Proposals must demonstrate meaningful engagement of communities, civil society, and women with lived experience throughout design and delivery.

Sustainability & Financing: Proposals should outline credible pathways to sustainable financing, long‑term affordability, and catalytic use of Unitaid funds.

Country Selection

Through this call, Unitaid aims to generate scalable models and evidence that accelerate national and global progress toward cervical cancer elimination, while strengthening health systems and advancing equity in women’s health.

Unitaid intends to comprehensively support activities in a minimum of five countries through this call; however, proposals may vary in their geographical scope and level of effort. Proponents are encouraged to propose approaches that are best suited to their objectives, whether through engagement in a smaller number of countries, engagement across multiple settings, or a focus on specific regional or cross-cutting priorities. Proponents should provide a clear rationale for the selection of their proposed countries and the level of engagement in each, aligned with the objectives of the call. Countries will be considered based on priority criteria. Candidate countries could be those that:

• Have a high disease burden in Cervical Cancer, reflected in incidence and mortality rates
• Have expressed commitments to the elimination of cervical cancer, through documented national plans that include strategies for CxCa elimination, and domestic financing commitments (or a clear roadmap to secure them).
• Have the potential to become an example for the CxCa response in other countries in the region through sharing of learnings and best practices
• Present a clear opportunity to advance equity in CxCa Elimination, including in rural, marginalized or hard to reach populations. Considerations of sub-national disparities, with justification for selected providence/districts or populations.
• Representation across geographies, with diversity in health system contexts, languages, and delivery environments.
• Reflect alignment and complementarity with regional and global initiatives and financings mechanisms, including (but not limited to) Africa CDC, PAHO, and the Global Financing Facility, to ensure coherence, avoid duplication and maximize catalytic impact.

The final list of countries may be modified and will depend on a country readiness assessment with inputs from Unitaid.

Project and Portfolio Oversight:

Effective governance and coordination are essential for impact and sustainability. Proposals should outline mechanisms for close collaboration with government at all levels, alignment with national strategies and policies, and coordination with other stakeholders—including donors, technical partners, and implementing agencies. Applicants should describe how they will contribute to national and regional learning agendas, participate in technical working groups, and support the harmonization of standards and practices. Strong governance structures, clear roles and responsibilities, and transparent decision-making processes are expected to underpin all proposed interventions. Unitaid places a high priority on Community and Civil Society Engagement in this Call for Proposals. Strong and sustained engagement with affected communities and civil society organizations is essential to ensuring that cervical cancer interventions are responsive, equitable, and grounded in real-world needs. Proposals that position CCSE partners as strategic partners in scoping, design, delivery and governance will be considered more responsive to the objectives of this Call for Proposals. Unitaid as a funder and thought partner will provide portfolio oversight and leverage its convening power and influence to support the project, lead grantee and the consortium.

A strong emphasis will be placed on equity and inclusion, with proposals required to demonstrate meaningful engagement with civil society, community groups, including women with lived experience, and affected populations from the outset. Strategies should be described for increasing program relevance and reaching underserved, high-burden, or marginalized groups, addressing barriers to access, and empowering communities to participate in and shape the response. Approaches that foster local ownership, build advocacy capacity, and create feedback mechanisms for continuous improvement are highly encouraged. Applicants should describe how they will contribute to national and regional learning agendas, participate in technical working groups, and support the harmonization of standards and practices. Strong governance structures, clear roles and responsibilities, national leadership for programming and transparent decision-making processes are expected to underpin all proposed interventions Proposals should demonstrate how activities and financing will be coordinated with existing or planned investments from other donors and regional bodies, and how Unitaid funding will add value within the broader financing landscape.

Proposals under this Call for Proposals are expected to contribute to a Theory of Change (TOC). Unitaid presents this TOC as a guiding framework; however, Unitaid expects proponents to build on this and articulate how projects will contribute to this initiative and achieve impact. Proposals should explicitly state what can be achieved within the timeframe of the project.

Through this Call for Proposals, Unitaid aims to catalyze progress toward eliminating cervical cancer by supporting interventions that strengthen national programs, enhance innovation, and improve equitable access to lifesaving products and services, leading to significant public health and economic impact. The interventions are expected to have the following outcomes:

1. Increased proportion of women screened and treated for precancerous lesions
   By supporting integrated and nationally led services, more women—especially those in underserved communities—will be able to access high-quality screening and treatment for precancerous lesions, moving countries closer to the WHO targets of 70% screening and 90% treatment.
2. Improved retention across the continuum of care
   Strengthened referral systems, digital tracking, and reliable supply chains will help women complete the full care pathway from screening to treatment, reducing loss to follow-up.
3. Accelerated adoption of innovative tools and delivery approaches
   Innovative solutions such as AI-assisted screening, point-of-care diagnostics, pooled laboratory models, and digital tracking solutions will improve efficiency, coverage, and quality of cervical cancer services.
4. Stronger, more reliable supply of cervical cancer commodities
   Improved national procurement systems, better forecasting, and pooled procurement mechanisms will make essential medicines and diagnostics more available and predictable, resilient throughout climate-related shocks and disruptions, while improving visibility and market intelligence, including clear information on pricing, demand, and financing needs.
5. Sustainable, nationally owned programs
   By embedding services, innovations, and supply systems within national health systems, and supporting planning, financing, and governance, programs will be stronger, more sustainable, and aligned with country and CCSE priorities.

Ultimately, these actions are expected to reduce cervical cancer cases and deaths, help countries reach elimination targets, and strengthen health systems for women’s health more broadly.

Unitaid considers working with communities and civil society partners a critical part of generating demand and strongly encourages adopting inclusive approaches, and the early and continued meaningful engagement of communities towards improving the lives and health of the most vulnerable people. The role of affected communities and planned collaborations with other relevant groups including grassroots community organizations and Civil Society Organizations at all stages of a project/program including ideation is essential, with this engagement a key determinant for success. Activities should be clearly budgeted in proposal submissions. Community-led approaches are important to consider and adequately fund and resource when designing, planning, implementing, and evaluating activities and programs. Applicants are expected to demonstrate meaningful and substantive engagement with community and civil society organizations as core partners within their consortiums and governance structures, including at the proposal stage, program design, implementation and monitoring. CCSE partners should be involved not only in advocacy and demand generation, but also in a wider program delivery, where appropriate.

Unitaid is primarily looking for proposals from South-based lead implementers (i.e. organizations that are headquartered in a low- or middle-income country) with experience in leading the implementation of large-scale projects that support access to health products in low- and middle-income countries.  Unitaid’s objective of progressively retaining an increased number of lead implementing partners from the global south does not preclude proposals that are led by or including partners from the global north, where their role is deemed complementary and important for the success of the proposal. When adjudicating proposals, Unitaid will consider the budget proportion allocated to global south partners.

Unitaid is committed to climate and environmental action in its investments and expects its partners to make similar commitments. Proposals should clearly indicate: (i) Efforts that will be made to minimize carbon emissions from project activities; (ii) Potential opportunities to contribute to broader climate and/or environmental co-benefits, in synergy with core project objectives. Proposals are encouraged to consider how to strengthen the resilience of supply chains and program delivery, in ways that support continuity of services and equitable access to cervical cancer prevention and care. More detailed guidance and definitions are provided in the proposal template.

Proposals should demonstrate value for money and measurable impact. Proposals should also include analysis of pathways to impact, scalability, and sustainability of key interventions. Evidence of co-funding  can be included. Applicants are expected to describe how any Unitaid funding awarded will be used strategically to catalyze and help unlock additional sources of financing in pursuit of the objectives and goals of this call. Recognizing that specific financing arrangements and pathways will be further developed during project implementation, proposals should articulate what funding is currently available, and plausible approaches to mobilizing complementary funding. This should include the types of financing that may be explored (for example, public, philanthropic, private, or blended sources), the ways in which Unitaid funding could act as a catalyst, and the potential for leverage or multiplier effects. Where feasible, applicants should provide indicative estimates of the scale and timing of additional resources that could be mobilized, explain the key assumptions and uncertainties underpinning these estimates, and describe how such financing would be expected to contribute to sustainability, scale, and impact beyond the period of Unitaid support.