Asian People’s Alliance for Combating HIV&AIDS

Report on building a national alliance to combat HIV and aids

Recognizing the problem of HIV/AIDS facing the country today and given the fact that several actors are engaged in addressing the problem locally and regionally; a need was felt to build a national alliance of various stakeholders to consolidate and synthesize the efforts and energies of various agencies to create a significant, discernible and tangible impact at the national level. In addition, to comprehensively address the causes and consequences of the epidemic a need to initiate a multi-sectoral approach has been strongly realized.

With these broad objectives in mind, Centre for Youth Development and Activities (CYDA) organized a one day consultation of representatives from 25 NGOs working on the issue of HIV&AIDS on 10th Aug,08 at YMCA, Pune. The specific aim of the consultation was to;

Deliberate and develop a consensus amongst the various stakeholders (including trade unions, student unions, women rights network, Dalits networks, PLHA networks) on the need for a national level alliance to combat HIV/AIDS.
To deliberate on the nature of such an alliance viz. its structure, the various constituencies that would form part of alliance, its mandate, functions, objectives etc.
To work out the functional modalities of creating such an alliance. How would coordination, communication be effected between the various partners, how to sustain and feed into the alliance .

At the outset of the consultation, Mr. Mathew Mattam from CYDA welcomed the participants and provided a brief introduction to the objective of the consultation.

The consultation began with self-introduction by the participants. The pre-lunch session was devoted to understanding and getting to know the various participants, their organizations and work on HIV/AIDS. The idea was to get to know each other better as potential partners of the proposed alliance to develop some common shared understanding to cement the alliance.

Mr. Prabodh Devkota, Asia regional coordinator of APACHA shared the experiences of APACHA network in combating the problem of HIV/AIDS in different countries of Asia. He stressed that HIV and AIDS as a problem has had a major impact on the economy as well as social security of countries. Mr. Devkota also stressed the importance of role of civil society in addressing the issue. Sharing his perception on the problem he stated that since the beginning of HIV/AIDS we have been targeting human behavior which is a byproduct of social, cultural and political factors and there is an imperative need to first and foremost address the structural issues such as access to primary health care, that pose major hindrances in combating the HIV/AIDS menace. He also expressed hope that this meeting in Pune will be a value addition in the context of India and stressed that APACHA and the Indian Alliance will work closely as in many other countries of Asia.

Ms. Christy Abraham, Thematic Leader, HIV/AIDS unit, Action-Aid set the tone for the discussions while presenting an overview of the process of building state level alliances by Action-AID and achievements of these state level networks in not only addressing regional issues and concerns but also creating a visible impact at the national level. Christy stated that alliance-building is a continuous on-going process and should not be viewed as an end in itself but a means to achieve the end viz. combating the problem of HIV/AIDS. The need for HIV/AIDS network to also build linkages and work closely with other networks involved in the women?s rights issues, human rights, rights of transgender, Trade unions so that these could strategically work towards strengthening, expanding and feeding into the cause of HIV/AIDS alliance was highlighted.

She stressed on the importance of working with diverse groups and how an alliance can provide a much needed platform for these diverse groups and multiple stakeholders to come together in their fight against HIV/AIDS. Christy also strongly put her opinion on the need to develop links with the proposed alliance with existing other alliance in different parts of India.

Dr. Jose of CARE India shared the organization?s perspective on HIV/AIDS. It defined HIV/AIDS epidemic as a man made avoidable disaster. He shared that Care India follows the Innovation, demonstration and replication model and rights based approach in its programme including HIV/AIDS. He shared that Care India has been working on a demonstration site in Godawari wherein they have been instrumental in promoting several Swesha groups and about ten Community based organisations in the last two years. As part of this initiative the District collector convenes regular meetings with the PLWHAS who manage this programme.

Mr.Tanaji of Red R India expressed the need to delve on what would constitute the common structural response we are looking at while addressing the HIV/AIDS globally so that these could be then contextualized to local situations. Some of these common minimum areas of concern were related to Governance, Issues of women, primary health care, stigmatization and discrimination, menace of quacks and how does governance deal with it, lack of coordination between NGOs, tracking of budgets and funds.

Dr. Vinay Kulkarni of Prayas said that we are at crossroads wherein the target approach makes funding available only for working with high risk groups and is a major constraint in working with the general population. This also raises the question of how to effectively involve the common people while working on the issue of HIV/AIDS. He stressed the need to look at the human rights violation as a part of the wider gamut of discriminations and human right violations taking place with other sections of society. He also expressed the dilemma that they face in their work with HIV/AIDS wherein they sometime feel whether they are missing out on other more pressing health concerns while focusing on HIV/AIDS treatment in case of other diseases that are rampant in the country. Is it that Global fund has put HIV/AIDS on the forefront?

Uddan Trust shared that NACO is utilizing 3% of its budget on treatment. They shared the need to provide support to people living with HIV/AIDS, especially children. Mr. Romee Hijam expressed concern that there is very little funding available for community based interventions while priority is on institutional care, hospital-treatment etc.

Kamini Kapadia from Action Aid Mumbai ? shared her concerns about the alliance stating that they had tried to build an alliance but it did not happen perhaps because they were at that time not strong at the ground. They are now more confident to undertake this. However the alliance will only work if it is inclusive. She also suggested the need to first try out in a few districts and see how it works and then take it forward to other districts.

Mr.Tanaji from Red R suggested that we could look at some of the common minimum areas of concern emerging from the Bangkok meeting such as governance, social response, and access to primary health care as priority areas for the alliance to begin with. These minimum standards could be contextualized to generate appropriate responses at various levels.

The need to link up with other strategic alliances working on poverty, employment, dalit rights in the context of fighting HIV/AIDS alliance was agreed upon by all participants.

Leena Joshi Apanalya -Bombay said that she has been working with unemployed, underemployed youth since 1995 in slums of Mumbai. These constituencies are also hardest hit by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Apanalya thus is working at the preventive level to create awareness amongst the youth on HIV&AIDS concerns.

Mr.John Samuel , Action-Aid International highlighted the need for it to be a people?s alliance which is all inclusive. He said that the efforts on HIV/AIDS is characterized by the various agencies being in their own socks, carrying forward their own programmes and agendas. Therefore there is a need to bring together these diverse actors together on a common platform nationally. However this does not by any means undermine the importance and need for local, regional networks and alliances that should be encouraged to be formed. However HIV/AIDS should not continue to remain the concern of few organizations alone and the issue needs to be taken up by more and more organizations.

Mr. Hamid of Life Process Foundation while sharing his organizations perspective on the issue said that we need to focus on the rehabilitation of the sex workers who constitute a high ?risk group. He stressed the need to provide employment to those sex workers who want to get out of this profession. Govt. gives 1500 for distribution of condoms to sex workers however this amount is not sufficient to sustain them and therefore fails to wean them out of the profession. He also stressed the need to involve the police in any alliance, campaign on the issue of HIV/AIDS as they have a very potent role to play in the fight against the problem.

The second half of the day was spent on discussing the specifics of the alliance-the nature of the proposed alliance, the various constituencies that would be represented in the alliance, its objectives, specific strategies, steps that would form part of the alliance-building process.

There was a general consensus with regard to the broad nature of the alliance and some fundamental aspects of the alliance-building process

There was a general consensus on the growing sense of need to have a national alliance of various stakeholders to combat HIV/AIDS.
On the broad objective of the proposed alliance there was a general agreement that the alliance will serve as a platform for various stakeholders working on the issue of HIV/AIDS to come together to raise concerns at the national level on issues of import and those impacting on the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Also that the alliance should provide scope to engage all local/regional networks in the major vision at the national level.
It was also agreed that the alliance will be a people?s platform and all inclusive with multiple stakeholders and interest groups including the civil society, PLWHAs, doctors, media, police, trade unions and so on. However, PLWHAs will form the core of the alliance.
There was a recognition of the need for the alliance to forge critical linkages with other movements and networks including the feminist movement, movement for rights of dalits, trade unions and organisations fighting for rights of workers, human rights networks, networks fighting for rights of transgender in order to give the alliance a broad base subsuming wider interests of different interest groups to galvanise their support to work towards fighting the HIV/AIDS menace.
The alliance will primarily function to create a platform for regional/local efforts by diverse groups to converge nationally. However there was a consensus that the alliance should not be predominantly controlled or run by any one particular organization such that any particular individual or organization becomes the visible face of the alliance. Also that there should be a joint ownership and the minimalist coordination functions between the various alliance partners should be performed on rotation basis by each of the participating organization.
Need to build on the already existing regional groups and networks rather than begin from the scratch.
That the platform of the alliance will be used for advocacy to make services accessible.
It was agreed that in order to have an all inclusive alliance the need to keep open membership. The alliance should foster and nurture diverse interest groups to be brought into the folds of HIV/AIDS alliance. The USP of the alliance in this sense should be flexible and a broad knowledge based. The participation should be on voluntary basis so that it does not make other skeptic from joining in. The underpinning idea should be to evoke political and social responses to issues of concern and it should be primarily geared towards bringing change.
In order to sustain the alliance and the need to establish structure and systematic way of capturing communication between the various organisations in the alliances.
Proposed alliance will closely work with APACHA both at the national as well as the regional level.

Some of the suggestions made by the participants with regard to the structure of the alliance and the steps that should be initiated;

Ms.Meghna Marathe of Forbes Marshall suggested that there should be a formal structure and identity of the alliance.
The need to sensitize the top management of corporate for tapping into the trade union which everyone felt is an important constituency that should form part of the alliance.
corporate social responsibility can be strategically used to generate support for HIV/AIDS. At the level of primary health care the industry can especially play a greater role.
The need to broad base the alliance and forge Issue based networking. The strategic importance of pitching AIDS as a social issue rather than a health issue alone to establish such critical linkages with other interest groups.
The need to have a logo to give a visible tangible symbol with which people can straightaway connect. Also the need for other tools to bring people together and evolve some common identification and minimum understanding that would cement the alliance.

To meet these objectives, a team consisting of members from various organizations was formed to convert these thoughts and suggestions into action keeping in mind the specific issues and concerns.