HIV & AIDS Best Practice Documentation and Communication: A Key Information Gap in Southern Africa
HIV & AIDS Best Practice Documentation and Communication: A Key Information Gap in Southern Africa
In the past decade, there has been an increased demand for the inter-sharing of "Best Practices" in HIV and AIDS programming around the key response areas: prevention, care, support, treatment and impact mitigation, across southern Africa. Extensive efforts have been made by governments, civil society and private sector to roll-out programs - at regional, national community levels, and many have generated vital lessons learnt and evidence of success in their implementation. However detailed documentation of such initiatives, outlining core measures of good programming: Effectiveness; Cost-effectiveness; Relevance; Ethical soundness; Replicabililty; Innovativeness; and Sustainability, remains limited in the region.
While recognition of the need to document Best Practices is widely apparent, capacity to identify, plan, conduct, document, and disseminate an HIV and AIDS related Best Practice initiative remains limited.
The scale-up of Best Practice documentation in southern Africa, would serve as a critical springboard for diverse implementing bodies to replicate interventions that have proven effective elsewhere. The documentation and sharing of Best Practices has globally been shown to stimulate and improve programme design and delivery, that is based on lessons learnt, is sustainable, and reaches a larger pool of beneficiaries, using the minimal available resources. To facilitate this, there is subsequent need to expand capacity levels, through intensive knowledge and skills building activities, of program implementers and managers across the region.
Scaling-up Documentation of HIV & AIDS Best Practices: The Commitments
To help drive the knowledge-sharing process that lies at the heart of documenting and sharing Best HIV and AIDS Practices, in 1997, UNAIDS began the production of its ‘Best Practice Collection', a series of publications ranging from guidelines, updates and policy papers, to case studies, handbooks, and examinations of particular challenges and responses, all designed to promote learning, share experience and empower people and partners engaged in the AIDS response.
The African Union's (AU) HIV/AIDS Continental Strategic Plan positions the AU as an advocate and co-ordinator of a continental response to the emergency posed by HIV and AIDS, and aims to achieve this positioning through six major objectives. The AU Commission's (AUC) strategies for this ambitious, yet realistic plan include, among other directions: To develop, in collaboration with partners, policies and strategies to ensure that African human and institutional capacity is strengthened to meet the challenges of fighting the HIV and AIDS pandemic. Within this dimension, the African Union Commission will lead efforts to catalyse faster action, south-to-south collaboration, and sharing of Best Practices.
The member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have been responding to the HIV epidemic for more than two decades. Yet the combined experiences of the member states have not been fully harvested or systematically documented to guide member states and the region at large, in the design and implementing of HIV and AIDS interventions. One of the most useful avenues to strengthen the response is through sharing Best Practices on HIV and AIDS among member states. This will guide and maximise efficiency and effectiveness of the responses to the various facets of the epidemic. Under this premise, the member states of SADC have further reinforced their full commitment to the challenge of controlling HIV and AIDS in the region, through the development of a strong framework for a regional response to the epidemic, by implementing resolutions contained in the 2003 Maseru declaration. The Maseru Declaration on Combating HIV and AIDS recognises: "..that within the SADC Region there have been successes and Best Practices in changing behaviour, reducing new infections and mitigating the impact of HIV and AIDS , and that these successes need to be rapidly scaled up and emulated across the SADC region". Both the SADC Strategic and Business Plans on HIV and AIDS advocate for the sharing of Best Practices between and within member states.
SAfAIDS Unique Role in HIV & AIDS Best Practice Documentation and Communication
Program Thrust - It is in line with these regional and global strategic directions, and SAfAIDS' niche in the region as an information service, that SAfAIDS runs a regional program to:
Build capacity (knowledge-base and skills) around Best Practice Documentation (planning, methodology development, writing, packaging and dissemination strategy development processes) among members of national AIDS councils, PLHIV bodies, community based and non-governmental organisations, and other similar stakeholders who are implementing, monitoring and evaluating development programs
- Share a Comprehensive Training and Reference Package on HIV & AIDS Documentation and Communication, and a specific Focus on Best Practice documentation, with program implementers and managers
- Document, package, and disseminate identified best practices in HIV & AIDS, gender, culture and other developmental areas of programming in the region
Recent Best Practice Documentation Experiences:
Between 2007 and 2008 SAfAIDS documented a series of diverse best practices from across the region. Under a SADC project, national HIV and AIDS best practices were documented in four member states: Mauritius, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. A unique community best practice was documented by SAfAIDS in Zimbabwe, which outlined shared elements of Best Practice which had effectively addressed the "triple linkage" of culture, gender and HIV within a community setting. Meanwhile in 2008, under a USAID funded program, SAfAIDS is documenting best practices around antiretroviral treatment literacy initiative in Botswana, Lesotho and Malawi. And in partnership with Oxfam International, documentation of 6 best practices around gender and culture, and their nexus to the epidemic, is being done in Zimbabwe.
SAfAIDS has conducted several trainings around HIV and AIDS best practice documentation across the region, at both national and SADC levels. These have generated a series of lessons learnt, the key ones being:
- Capacity building of stakeholders within the community where documentation will take place, is a critical preliminary step to the actual documentation process. It enables buy-in to the documentation process, simultaneously expanding the pool of documenters in the community.
- Engagement of trainees (in best practice documentation) in a ‘dummy documentation' has proven significant in heightening the appreciation and understanding of establishing a systematic methodology for the documentation process
Through this program SAfAIDS seeks to contribute to the regional knowledge base of "What works and What doesn't, with specific focus on cultural constraints and circumstances", and "What will help shape current and future programmes", and enhance the wealth of ‘hands on' experience-sharing and effective programme replication among community-based HIV and AIDS programmes across southern Africa.
