AMICAALL Strengthens Capacity of Urban Local Governemnts in HIV/AIDS Mainstreaming
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AMICAALL has for the last 5 years, with support from UNDP supported urban local governments to strengthen their capacity to address HIV/AIDS concerns at the urban local level. In this regard, progress has been realized in areas of strengthening coordination of the multi-sectoral response to HIV/AIDS, community based interventions for OVC and mobilizing the urban leadership and commitment for HIV/AIDS response.
Although the Local Government Act 1997 mandates all local governments to mainstream HIV/AIDS in their plans and budgets, very few urban local governments had taken on mainstreaming as an approach. The major reasons cited by majority of these urban local governments were: not understanding the concept of mainstreaming and having no skills, as well as lacking guidelines on how to mainstream.
In order to empower urban leaders with the necessary knowledge and skills in HIV/AIDS mainstreaming, and to consolidate achievements made in responding to HIV/AIDS using a multi-sectoral response and sustain the leadership commitment for the local response at the urban council level, AMICAAL during 2008 focused on building capacity in HIV/AIDS mainstreaming of all urban local governments in the country. In order to achieve this, AMICAALL, with support from UNDP, carried out the following activities;
1.Development of a Toolkit for HIV/AIDS Mainstreaming in Urban Local Governments
AMICAALL developed a toolkit for HIV/AIDS mainstreaming in urban local governments to facilitate HIV/AIDS mainstreaming process at urban local government level, and promote effective participation of all urban local government sectors in planning and implementation of identified priority HIV/AIDS interventions in an effective and more sustainable manner. The toolkit was also developed as part of implementation of the National Mainstreaming Guidelines
The toolkit considers the multi-disciplinary nature of HIV/AIDS and the dual challenge it presents for development and staff and councilors, and provides a framework on how urban local governments can prioritize and implement issues of HIV and AIDS in their policies and development programmes in different sectors and among their partners
The toolkit relates the problems of HIV to key development issues like gender, human rights, and poverty. The toolkit focuses targeted users to the basic steps of HIV/AIDS mainstreaming which familiarizes the user on mainstreaming HIV/AIDS at the workplace (internal mainstreaming) and external mainstreaming.
2.Training in HIV/AIDS mainstreaming for urban local governments
Using the HIV/AIDS Mainstreaming Toolkit, AMICAALL conducted training workshops at regional level for western, central eastern and northern region. The training targeted three urban leaders in each of the 105 urban local governments including the Mayor/or Town Council Chairperson, Town Clerk and AMICAALL Local Coordinator (Municipal/Town HIV focal person). More than 330 urban leaders attended the workshop. The Eastern region workshop was officiated by the UNDP Assistant Resident Representative and Head of the Governance Unit Mr. Sam Ibanda.
The UNDP HIV and AIDS Programme Analyst Mr. Bharam Namanya facilitated at the central region training workshop. The specific objectives of the training were;
To orient participants on the National HIV/AIDS Mainstreaming Policy and guidelines
To empower urban leaders and managers (technical staff) with appropriate knowledge and skills in HIV/AIDS mainstreaming
To solicit views on AMICAALL future Strategy and Programme sustainability
A number of sessions were covered, which provided participants with a variety of opportunities; an opportunity to review the global and national HIV/AIDS situation, which introduced participants to the magnitude of the AIDS problem, different concepts of mainstreaming and its importance and a step by step process of mainstreaming HIV/AIDS in programs and at the workplace was explored. This also provided an opportunity to share experiences and learn from each other. After each presentation time was provided for participants to discuss and express their feelings from which a number of observations were noted.
In order to enable participants gain a deeper understanding of steps in mainstreaming, participants were clustered into groups to discuss and analyze four sectoral areas of urban local government in relation to HIV/AIDS namely; Finance, Planning and Administration; education sector; Health sector; Works, Roads, Water and Production and Community based Services sector.
The discussion that was guided by four important questions raised a number of HIV/AIDS issues pertinent to each sector and noted a number of challenges. For instance, some of the key issues in the Finance, Planning and Administration sector included; absenteeism among staff, increased workload due to sickness, high staff turn over due to death/sickness, low output, and insufficient data to inform planning, limited expertise in planning; monitoring, evaluation and supervision and low revenue base.
Common among the possible strategic actions discussed included
Having a budget line in council plans for HIV/AIDS e.g. to support the infected and affected staff
developing HIV/AIDS work policy to encourage VCT, condom use, and hold seminars
conducting regular survey to generate up to date information
data collection and storage
vocational training for orphans
promotion of HIV testing and counseling to prevent sexual transmission
community awareness on circumcision
recruitment and motivation of health workers
The feedback from participants showed that they appreciated the training and had internalized the concept of mainstreaming and were in a better position to carry out practical actions of mainstreaming HIV/AIDS in the existing programmes within different sectors of the urban council
At the end of the workshop, participants agreed on a number of actions for taking forward mainstreaming in their urban councils including;
Start HIV/AIDS mainstreaming in the upcoming planning/budgeting cycle due in Sept/October 2008
Disseminate national HIV/AIDS mainstreaming Guidelines and Toolkit for HIV/AIDS mainstreaming in urban local governments among technical staff and councilors
AMICAALL to regularly review the progress and support urban councils in the process of mainstreaming HIV/AIDS in their plans and budgets
Train other members (technical and policy) in HIV/AIDS mainstreaming
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