Who decides who gets sponsorship to come to a meeting and how?

Some coalitions have quite formal procedures for making these decisions. Decisions could be made by the coalition staff (although this leaves them with a lot of responsibility); by the leadership body if there is one; or there could be other mechanisms.

Some coalitions have used application forms with basic criteria for sponsorship. Examples of sponsorship forms are included on the www.globalcoalitions.org site. These explain the process for applying, include criteria for sponsorship, the status of the issue and work being done in the country the applicant is coming from, and the factual information needed to organise travel and visas if the applicant is successful.

One of the most important considerations when determining sponsorship is the work people are doing at home between conferences. People should be accountable for their work at the national level and it can be counter-productive to sponsor people who are not actually doing work at home. Some of the issues here relate to the discussion on small grants covered in Chapter 6.