Background
The National AIDS Commission (NAC) secured funding from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) through Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to support a five-year project on “Strengthening Multi-sectoral Coordination and Implementation and Monitoring of HIV/AIDS in Malawi”. The purpose of the project is to reduce high HIV prevalence and incidence in Malawi, recognizing age, gender, and geographic disparities. The project supports the coordination of activities related to Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision (VMMC), HIV and gender-based violence (GBV) prevention, Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), and key population (KP) programming, as well as other holistic services targeting risk factors for HIV and linkages/retention to care for those living with HIV, in order to establish a comprehensive and efficient response to the high prevalence of HIV in Malawi. The project will also increase the ability of PEPFAR supported HIV/TB prevention programming in Malawi to successfully meet objectives in a cost-efficient manner. The target populations for this project include adolescent girls and young women (AGYW), KP (MSM and FSW), health care workers, adolescent boys and young men (ABYM), and other priority groups (e.g. tea plantation workers, fishermen), and men.
Expected Outcomes
The Short-Term Outcomes of this project are:
- improved quality of VMMC, GBV, AGYW, KP, and PrEP services which are aligned to the national guidelines and standard operating procedures (SOPs);
- improved identification of best practices and structural barriers for HIV prevention programs;
- increase in continued service delivery informed by data mapping;
- improved quality assessment (QA) and evaluation criteria; and
- improved provider and stakeholder access to and understanding of quality standards related to prevention programming and service delivery.
Strategic Activities
To achieve the project objectives NAC is implementing the following strategic activities:
- Coordinate, develop, and disseminate national VMMC, GBV, AGYW, KP, and PrEP guidelines and standard operating procedures (SOPs) to guide the implementation of HIV prevention services.
- Coordinate and facilitate collaboration among multi-sectoral stakeholders to discuss, develop, identify best practices and address structural gaps for HIV prevention programs.
- Identify service delivery areas and expand effective and sustainable HIV prevention services including for AGYW/ABYM, and VMMC populations.
- Coordinate the implementation of continuous quality improvement measures and program evaluation measures to ensure client satisfaction and reliable, valid, cost-effective programming.
Collaborations
The National AIDS Commission will collaborate with CDC-funded implementing partners working on HIV prevention and treatment programs for KP, AGYW, and other populations, as well as CDC-funded implementing partners working on VMMC. The National AIDS Commission will also collaborate with the Malawi MOH, USAID/USAID implementing partners, faith-based organizations (FBOs), community-based organizations (CBOs)/community service organizations (CSOs), Global Fund, and other international organizations implementing HIV programs.