Progress Report: December 12, 2008
This note provides an update on ASAP service provision in response to requests from countries, the ASAP capacity building initiative, and recent meetings and briefings at which ASAP has been discussed.
RECENT HIGHLIGHTS
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On November 14 an HIV/AIDS Team from UNDP, including Jeff O’Malley and Nadia Rasheed, visited ASAP in Washington, DC to discuss ongoing collaboration and ways to further strengthen the UNDP/ASAP partnership.
At the request of the UNAIDS Regional Support Team for Eastern and Southern Africa, Janet Leno represented ASAP at the RST’s October Regional Management Meeting held in Durban, to share with regional colleagues the findings of the ASAP Lead Consultants’ Meeting that took place in July 2008. The findings of July meeting are presented in a Note available at the ASAP website (www.worldbank.org/asap).
The latest ASAP Regional Capacity Building Workshop for national AIDS policy makers and technicians took place in Budapest, Hungary from September 29-October 10 for the ECA region. Participants included 40 representatives from 13 countries and ten from UNAIDS cosponsors.
Demand for ASAP Services
UPDATE ON ASAP SERVICE PROVISION – by REGION
1) Africa
From its inception ASAP has provided a range of support to 21 sub-Saharan African countries, two NGOs and one regional initiative. In 2008 ASAP has worked with the following partners:
· Burundi – work on financing scenarios and revision of the logical framework as inputs into the mid-term review of the current national strategic plan are being finalized through ASAP and TSF/West and Central Africa.
· Cote d’Ivoire – following support for decentralized action plans in early 2008, ASAP is now working with the TSF and UCC to support the upcoming MTR through provision of international technical inputs. ASAP will also finance local consultant services.
· DRC – an epidemiological and socio-cultural synthesis was completed in November. Findings were discussed at provincial level and the report’s conclusions will provide the evidence base for development of the new NSP.
· Ethiopia – technical support was provided to HAPCO and UNAIDS to guide the review of the current NSP and develop the new plan.
· The Gambia –national and international consultants completed a behavioral survey of vulnerable groups, which will be used in preparation of the new NSP. ASAP, the RST/WCA and the TSF/WCA, and UNDP have identified technical support in strategic planning, M&E and gender to guide development of the NSP.
· Liberia – consultant inputs to the new NSP were submitted to the NAC for finalization of the new strategy in October 2008.
· Madagascar – consultants started working with the CNLS from November 2008 to develop a two-year multi-sector operational plan.
· Mauritius – in January ASAP provided a peer review of the National Strategic Framework.
· Niger – field work is nearly completed through ASAP and the TSF/WCA to underpin development of regional HIV/AIDS operational plans.
· Rwanda – consultant support (provided in part through the TSF/EA) was provided to the CNLS in August/September 2008 to guide a decentralized review of the current strategy in preparation for development of the new NSP.
· Swaziland – in September NERCHA requested ASAP to finance the inputs of a TSF lead consultant and GAMET M&E inputs to design of the new NSP.
· Tanzania – at the request of UNAIDS and TACAIDS, ASAP undertook an epidemiological synthesis that was presented to all partners at the October Joint Annual Review. ASAP will now work to support decentralized planning based on the evidence discussed at the MTR.
· Zambia – a peer review was provided on the HIV/AIDS operational plan in February 2008.
2) Asia
To date ASAP has provided peer review and technical assistance to six countries and one NGO network in the region. Since October 2008 ASAP support has been completed in response to requests from:
· Mongolia NAC – following a peer review in March, ASAP provided technical support to guide a review of the strategy to ensure linkages to the evidence and clear results. On this basis, and building on the recent UNAIDS review, the new NSP and action are now nearing finalization. Costing was financed by ASAP through the TSF/East Asia.
· Mongolia AIDS Foundation – in partnership with the International AIDS Alliance, ASAP provided guidance to this IAA linking partner to develop its strategic plan.
· Myanmar – peer review requested by and provided to the UCC in February 2008
· Nepal – costing of the NSP conducted in response to UCC request in June 2008
3) Caribbean
Seven countries in the region have requested ASAP support over the past few years. Today, together with the RST and UCC, ASAP is discussing costing support for Antigua, St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines and St Lucia, and has just completed support to:
· Dominica – in collaboration with the UCC, ASAP provided technical support to help produce a new NSP and costed action plan. M&E inputs were provided by the Government through the Caribbean Health Research Council.
· Grenada – ASAP guided development of the NSP and provided a peer review in early 2008.
4) Europe
Five European countries have received support. In 2008 ASAP work has included:
· Albania – ASAP provided technical assistance to update the situation analysis, revise the strategy and estimate costs.
· Kosovo – the new strategy has just been finalized and costed.
· Lithuania – a peer review of the draft NSP was provided in early December 2008 in response to a request from the Ministry of Health through UNODC.
5) Latin America
In close collaboration with the RST, ASAP has established a team of regional consultants who are providing a range of support to 11 countries in the region. Through a series of country visits the ASAP team is helping each country to assess their particular situation and technical support needs, update their evidence base (initially in seven countries *), revise their strategies accordingly and cost the updated documents once they are ready. In addition to earlier work to strengthen the evidence in Honduras, the 11 countries in the region working with ASAP are:
· Argentina*
· Bolivia*
· Ecuador*
· El Salvador*
· Guatemala*
· Panama*
· Peru*
· Chile
· Uruguay
· Dominican Republic
· Costa Rica
4) MENA
Working together with the RST/MENA and the World Bank MENA Region, ASAP has initiated work in four countries. At present one of those (Morocco) has asked for additional support for regional operational planning and another (Syria) has initiated discussions about obtaining ASAP support. Work is currently ongoing in:
· Lebanon – where support is being provided through national consultants to develop costed action plans for the key civil society organizations working with vulnerable groups.
· MENA Regional NSP Review – at the request of the RST, ASAP is collaborating on this review of NSPs in the region.
ASAP TOOLS
The following practical ‘tools’ have been developed to provide additional support to partners to help strengthen national strategies and action plans
ASAP website (www.worldbank.org/asap) – The site includes a large number of national strategies, and new strategies continue to be added as they are finalized. The tools described below are all available on the website, and have received positive responses from country-based partners.
Self-Assessment Tool and Guidelines – At the request of the Global Task Team, ASAP developed a strategic Self-Assessment Tool (SAT) and application Guidelines for countries to rate their strategies based on a list of internationally-recommended criteria. The SAT is an Excel spreadsheet and has the same general format, “look and feel” as other complementary tools developed by the Global Fund. The tool automatically generates a simple graph to reflect areas of strength and weakness in the strategy. Guidelines explain the thinking and global experience for each of the criteria, and provide references for more information. This helps to make the tool consistent with, and linked to, other relevant tools and guidelines, and helps users navigate through the wealth of existing resources.
The SAT and Guidelines were discussed at the Vienna Global Fund validation meeting in October and will be updated to reflect agreed GF validation attributes. This tool is available in French and Spanish.
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Road Map[1] – The Road Map starts with a review of the situation of the epidemic and the achievements of the national response, which in turn informs the identification of the key results that the national strategy aims to achieve. This ‘results cycle’ is summarized in several clear steps and has been used extensively in Latin America. ASAP is continuing to refine the Road Map to help countries plan the process of doing national strategic planning.
Practice Notes – Based on demand from countries, ASAP has produced four practice notes, and is working on a fifth:
· The process of creating a national HIV/AIDS strategy - this note was finalized in October 2007 on the basis of comments received from members of the ASAP Technical Advisory Group and others.
· The costing of national strategies - the note elicited useful comments from colleagues and is now being finalized following the recent meeting with the TSFs and UNADS. (Both notes were undertaken with assistance from the National AIDS Commission of Swaziland and the UNAIDS Technical Support Facility for Southern Africa.)
· Facilitating a results-focus in strategy formulation based on experience in reviewing 28 national strategies.
· Findings from the Lead Consultants Meeting held in July 2008.
· A practice note on action planning is in draft and will be produced in early 2009 for comment.
ASAP CAPACITY BUILDING THROUGH TRAINING AND WORKSHOPS
ASAP capacity strengthening work targets high-level policy makers and technical. INSP of Mexico leads a consortium of 7 regional training partners, along with the World Bank Institute, UNAIDS Co-sponsors and the UNAIDS Secretariat and RSTs. This work is guided by the AIDS Training Advisory Committee for Strategy (PRSP and ASAP), Resource Tracking, Mainstreaming and Costing, chaired by UNDP. Steps taken to date include the following:
· A workshop for high-level policymakers was piloted in the Caribbean in late 2006 for 14 countries, and the first official ASAP training for the Caribbean took place in June
· In collaboration with the RSTs in Africa, a workshop for francophone and anglophone African participants from 17 countries was held in Durban, South Africa in November 2007.
· A costing workshop for TSF consultants was held in Johannesburg in April 2008.
· M&E training for TSF and independent consultants was organized in May 2008.
· A brainstorming meeting of strategic planning consultants was held in July 2008.
· A workshop for ECA taking place in Budapest from September 29 – October 10, and one for MENA will take place in January 2009.
ASAP BUSINESS PLAN 2008-2009
The 2008-2209 Business Plan sets out the operational direction for the service based on the overall guidance from the ASAP advisory group meetings held in October 2007, including: give much greater attention to providing guidance and technical support on action planning; expand target groups in capacity building workshops; provide greater opportunities for cosponsor involvement; and take measures to assure high-quality support. In order to accomplish these objectives ASAP has sought additional financing from trust funds, the World Bank budget and the UBW. ASAP is grateful for the expressed support to its continued and expanded operations from the UNAIDS partnership, and is currently also seeking financial support from the US Government.
SOME LESSONS LEARNED
ASAP’s review of 23 national strategic plans indicate that most plans would benefit from the following:
· Stronger analysis of the evidence base
· Better linkage between the evidence of the epidemic and the proposed strategy
· A focus on results rather than on advocacy
· More attention to gender and to marginalized groups
· Improved operational and human resource planning
COORDINATION AND ALIGNMENT
Since mid-2006 ASAP has met with a number of stakeholders to improve understanding of the services offered, to identify roles for partners and to increase coordination.
Mar 2007 Briefing was provided to the Asia-Pacific UNAIDS Regional Management Meeting, which provided an opportunity for further discussion of harmonization of costing approaches.
April 2007 ASAP met with UNAIDS Representative for Latin America for briefings about ASAP work in the region. ASAP also made two presentations at the IVth HIV/AIDS LAC Forum that was held in Argentina.
June 2007 ASAP made two presentations at the PEPFAR Implementers’ Meeting in Kigali, Rwanda
Aug 2007 ASAP presented at the International Conference on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP) in Colombo, Sri Lanka, as part of a symposium session on Universal Access and the GFATM (organized by UNAIDS RST for Asia and the Pacific and GFATM)
Oct 2007 Meetings in NY and Cairo with the UNAIDS ASAP Advisory Group and the ASAP Technical Advisory Group were held to discuss evaluation findings and chart the way forward.
Nov 2007 At the invitation of the UNAIDS RST for Southern and Eastern Africa, ASAP participated in a meeting in Durban to discuss region needs and, in particular, action planning.
ASAP made presentations at the Regional Latin America HIV/AIDS Conference and at the Council of Ministers of Health Meeting, both held in Managua, Nicaragua