Over the past 25 years, AIDS has imposed a huge cost, in economic and social terms, on many countries, communities, and households around the world. At the same time, the price tag to respond fully and effectively in the areas of prevention, care and treatment, mitigation, and research has grown to tens of billions of dollars, and is continuing to increase. There have been dramatic increases in funding, but available resources are now becoming increasingly tight as the global recession adversely impacts both donor and developing countries, and as other competing priorities (e.g.

The Transparency and Accountability Program (TAP) strengthens the capacity of independent monitoring organizations (IMOs) in low- and middle-income countries to promote improvements in social sector public spending and better hold their governments accountable for expenditure decisions and actions. The core of TAP is a competitive small grants program that enables participating IMOs to complete original analytical and advocacy work on a specific topic in public expenditures in their country.