From the 5th to the 7th of July the East African and Indian Ocean Country Coordinating Mechanisms (CCM) of Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, met in Crown Plaza Hotel, Nairobi for a regional Workshop that aimed to present the new Global Fund strategies and its impacts in their grants lifecycles and the responsibilities of the CCMs. The workshop was attended by Eastern Africa and Indian Ocean National Focal Points. Ibrahim from Comoros, Enoch from Uganda and Guffran from Mauritius represented youth in the region in this CCM workshop and were later joined by Job from Kenya and East African Regional Focal Point Yvonne.

The 3 day workshop was organized by the Global Funds CCM Team to discuss about issues and new guidelines of eligibility concerning grants of Global Fund, amongst others.

Objectives of the workshop were:

• Provide guidance on, and discuss the CCMs role throughout the grant life cycle.
• Introduce the New CCM Guidelines approved by the Global Fund Board in May 2011.
• Strengthen CCM understanding of oversight.
• Strengthen processes to effectively mobilize country stakeholders, in particular Non-Governmental sectors participation in the CCMs (including civil society and private constituencies).
• Exchange country experiences and promote good practices of CCMs within the region.
• Scope out possible implications on future CCM work through dialogue with the CCM members about Global Funds new strategic framework, reform agenda, grant architecture, CCM Funding, CCM performance and other recent developments.
• Enhance compliance with the Global Fund Board requirements.
• Define priority areas for CCM technical support.

GYCAs East African and Indian Ocean National Focal Points and Regional Focal Point later met to deliberate on strengthening GYCA’s initiatives in the region and their involvement in decision-making and participation in the Country Coordinating Mechanism of their respective countries.

 

 

GLOBAL YOUTH COALITION ON HIV/AIDS SUMMARY REPORT

Report on the Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) Regional Civil Society Universal Access Consultation, 10-11 March 2011 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Drafted by Yvonne Akoth, East Africa RFP and edited by Mawethu Zita, Southern Africa RFP

The UNAIDS Regional Support Team for Eastern and Southern Africa invited key Civil Society Partners to a regional eastern and southern  Africa civil society consultation on Universal Access to HIV Prevention, Treatment, Care and Support. The purpose of the meeting was to take stock of the last 10 years of UNGASS, progress made, short falls and to agree on what needs to be done to overcome past and current challenges in order to accelerate progress.

Regional Focal Points of Eastern and Southern (Yvonne and Mawethu), youth participants from the Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS, were proud to able to represent young people of our region. As the first session commenced, we thanked the UNAIDS team for involving us (youth), in the HIV/AIDS response.

Prof. Sheila Tlou, UNAIDS RST ESA Regional Director took us through an overview of the Universal Access Process, briefed us about the High Level Meeting and the importance of our resolutions as we are the most affected region. This was followed by presentations on the status of progress on universal access to HIV and AIDS prevention, treatment, care and support, key achievements, challenges and key recommendations. As most HIV and AIDS prevention and treatment programs, projects etc. always target young people in our region, we as the voice of youth in our region stressed the need for effective monitoring and evaluation in order to assess overall impact on funding (is it being channelled to the right direction), programs (are they reaching the targeted beneficiaries) etc. We requested for young people to be involved in monitoring and evaluation as this would generate a better reflective mechanism to evaluate progress from the recipients point of view keeping in mind that most of this initiatives are targeted towards young people in particular.

Thematic discussions on HIV prevention, treatment, care and support, human rights and barriers to access and gender were some of the discussions that we were able to take part in. Having attended sessions on treatment and prevention, we were able to stress the need for sustainable treatment regimens i.e. affordable ARVs and also a focus on quality and not just quantity as far as HIV/AIDS treatment is concerned.

Other important issues highlighted and stressed on included:

• Strengthening commitment and sustainable funding for Health and HIV
• Strengthening of Prevention in National Programs
• To review national targets on new treatment guidelines and acknowledging 
• The confrontation of Stigma and discrimination
• Increased domestic spending for long term sustainability
• Broadening of Care and Support initiatives

As youth participants, we also had the opportunity to strengthen our networks with UNAIDS and other Civil Society Organizations in our regions. We had brief but productive meetings with the Southern Africa AIDS Trust Executive Director, UNAIDS Regions Officer for advocacy, communication and information and Kenya’s National AIDS Control Council Director among others who promised to support us in our initiatives and whom we will also work very closely with in our regions/ respective countries.

In conclusion, we as the regional civil society partners made recommendations that:

1. There is need for ownership and leadership of the HIV and AIDS response by African Governments
2. Donors must fund human rights approaches.
3. Africa needs to invest more in Co-operate Social Responsibility, hence to invest in health
4. Ministers of Finance to have more responsibility to domestic financing Health Issues (HIV)
5. Empowerment Indigenous Organizations

At the last hour of the meeting, there was a nomination of 10 representatives from our region for the upcoming meeting, even though we were not nominated, we were able to exchange contacts with the people that will stress the youth involvements in all of the upcoming consultation before HLM in New York.

We (Mawethu and Yvonne) agreed that in our local and regional HIV and AIDS meetings, forums, seminar and workshops, we will stress for the need to have young people involved in the fight against HIV and AIDS as key partners and to be included in the planning, delivering and evaluation of HIV and AIDS initiatives. Our plan is to support young people in our communities speak out and develop their own actions to fight HIV and AIDS.

Yvonne Akoth, RFP in East Africa and Mawethu Zita, RFP in Southern Africa

Close to two years ago, (September 2008), UNICEF, WHO and UNFPA collaborated to organize and hold a sub-regional consultation with representatives of Ministries/Departments of Youth, National Youth Councils and Key National Youth Service Organizations from a minimum of four countries in Johannesburg, South Africa.

It emerged from the meeting that the evidence is substantially overwhelming ‘... Male circumcision reduces the transmission of HIV..,’

From the meeting it was evident that there is increased demand for circumcision in non-circumcised countries especially among the youths; MC is not an isolated intervention, but part of a package of HIV prevention; The emphasis should therefore be on ensuring safe male circumcision and people want to be circumcised, both in hospitals and other cultures by traditional healers.

Participants including me, agreed on a number of ways to ensure sustainability and encourage networking in a move to effectively roll out MC and include the Young People. I have been able to step up the campaign through an e-MC Group, e-discussions and a number of grassroot advocacies for MC among the Young people.

But the tactic is gradually moving from mass campaigns to one on one campaign. And I would like to engage you in a discussion on how we can achieve this. Your ideas are valuable... please let me know what you think

Background
In order to support countries strengthen the linkages between MC services and ASRH, WHO developed a guidance document with Promundo, with inputs from Engender Health. The document needed significant further development before it was used by services providers, youth NGOs and others.

WHO, UNICEF and UNFPA planned the meeting that was held in Durban, South Africa from 9th to 12th May, 2010 to further develop this guidance.

The mandate was: to review the guidelines that had been prepared and make suggestions for improvements, in terms of content and format; to redraft the guidance based on these suggestions; to identify resource materials that are available in the subregion on ASRH that would support the use of the guidance; and to agree on approaches for field-testing the next version and next steps for their use.

Results
A revised version of the MC/ASRH guidance,
A protocol for field-testing, who should do, though the time frame was not agreed upon
A plan for strengthening MC/ASRH linkages was developed.