Background the instability of which leads to frequent crippling shortages in currency and commodities. An unemployment rate reportedly as high as 90%1. An HIV prevalence of approximately Since 2016, KP Connect has collaborated with The Alliance Centre within Positive Vibes to expand activities related to its second outcome area: advocacy. Through this collaboration, thought and practice have developed around approaches that strengthen the influencing capacity of Alliance Linking Organisations and their associated Key Populations-led organisations, linked to programming for and with these populations themselves. In other country settings (eg. Zambia; Uganda), this capacity-strengthening support has centred around cultivating a vision for influence, developing a strategy, and exploring the collaborative relationship between Linking Organisations and their respective KP-led organisational partners in each respective country. In Zimbabwe, GALZ invited support to design and conduct a Situational Analysis of health services for LGBT people in Zimbabwe, through mixed-methods research of three health facilities in Harare and Bulawayo and their respective service-user populations. The light study aimed to analyse health service provision and identify enablers and barriers to access and uptake that may exist for key populations. Findings from the study would frame – amongst other outcomes – recommendations and guidelines to health facilities for more inclusive service provision. Intelligence generated from the Situational Analysis exercise would potentially inform the development of an influencing strategy and formulation of specific thematic policy briefs by GALZ, together with its in-country legal resources. Established in 1990, GALZ is one of the oldest membership-based LGBT rights organisations in Southern Africa, delivering a range of programmes to and on behalf of its constituency: direct service-provision; education, information and training; advocacy and political influencing; regional engagement on policy and LGBT health and rights strategy; sensitisation of community leaders, public duty-bearers and service providers; and facilitation of access to health and justice. 13% in the general population, but concentrated in disproportionately high numbers in key populations (eg. HIV prevalence in sex workers is approximately 50%; no data is reported for men who have sex with men)2, many of whom are socially stigmatised and legally criminalised so as to further limit their freedoms and confidence to access care. An overburdened public health system, where low wages, uncertain payroll cycles, drug shortages and stock-outs all contribute to low motivation and poor staff morale. And if reliable, quality care is a challenge to the general population, it is exponentially more challenging to LGBT people, who are targets of punitive law, and social and religious discrimination and stigma. Against this backdrop, GALZ has sought to facilitate increased access to decent care for its LGBT constituency by entering into partnership with three health facilities in the period 2016/2017, formalised through Memoranda of Understanding. Under this partnership, GALZ has responsibility for demand creation, mobilising its membership by encouraging LGBT people to access services provided by the partner facilities. Several GALZ members have been trained through PSI – and attract a nominal remuneration – to serve as Peer Mobilisers, an interface between the membership community and the facilities. GALZ has also offered sensitisation training to each of the facilities at the inception of the partnership. The Health Facilities, in turn, offer sexual and reproductive health services to the LGBT community, through referrals from GALZ, with the aim that those services are user-friendly within an environment that is safe and secure. Further, walk-in clients at the facilities are referred to GALZ for psychosocial support and counselling. Wilkins is an Infectious Diseases Hospital in Harare, a public health facility under the administration of the City of Harare. The hospital operates a Sexual and Gender-based Violence (SGBV) unit that facilitates the provision of SRH services to key populations. Not unlike many Southern African countries, accessing reliable, quality healthcare in Zimbabwe continues to be a complex challenge for the majority of that country’s residents, a compound function of socioeconomic, political and sociocultural factors. A fragile economy, 1 According to Zimbabwe’s Congress of Trade Unions, 2017 PERCEPTIONS, PERSPECTIVES 2 UNAIDS 2016 Country Fact Sheet Access to facility-based health services for LGBT people in Harare & Bulawayo, Zimbabwe: A Situational Analysis 5