Under the Norway Grants, from which the project Response to hiv is funded, Norway has set aside €804 million for the current funding period of 2009–2013 aimed at 13 countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. The EEA Grants and Norway Grants represent the contribution of Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway to reducing economic and social disparities and to strengthening bilateral relations with 16 EU countries in Central and Southern Europe and the Baltics. The decision-making body for the Norway grants scheme is the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In the funding period 2009–2014, the Norway Grants support specific programme areas, agreed with each receptive country, e.g.: green industry innovation, carbon capture and storage, research and scholarship, The global fund for decent work and tripartite dialogue, public health initiatives, judicial capacity-building and cooperation, cross-border cooperation to combat organised crime, mainstreaming gender equality and promoting work-life balance are just some of the areas.

Norway Grants Slovenia 2009–2014 has two programme areas:

  1. Public health initiatives, which is the umbrella programme area of the project Response to hiv.
  2. Mainstreaming gender equality and promoting work-life balance.

The specific programme area goals are: amending public health, decreasing disparities in acessibility of health prevention, gender equality and promoting work-life balance.

The Programme will contribute to the achievement of objectives with development and testing of new innovative approaches/models/interventions that build on local partnerships between non-governmental organizations, public institutions and local communities. At the national level the programme will also focus on capacity building and training of public professionals in collaboration with the Norwegian National Institute of Public Health from Oslo (NIPH).

In the field of Public Health Initiatives the programme will focus on reducing inequalities among user groups, prevention and reduction of life-style related diseases (the focus area under which the project Response to hiv falls) and improving mental health services in the Republic of Slovenia. A pre-defined project Together for health in the programme area Public Health Initiatives will be implemented by the Institute of Public Health of the Republic of Slovenia.

The Norwegian Financial Mechanism Programme aims to strengthen bilateral relations between the Kingdom of Norway and the Republic of Slovenia through cooperation with several Norwegian institutions by common programme and project development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation at the national, regional and local levels. The project partnership Response to hiv has a partner from Norway, non-governmental organisation Helseutvalget for bedre homohelse (Gay and lesbian health Norway).