Bringing the AIDS response home
Empowering local and district authorities in Lesotho, Tanzania and Mpumalanga, South Africa
Writer:
Stuart Adams
- Andrea Milkowski, GIZ
- Bob Verbruggen, UNAIDS
Approach developed by Sepp Grimm, Julia Weinand, Michael Marx, Brigitte Jordan-Harder, Silvio Decurtins and Kirsten Roettcher / Published by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, first edition: July 2006, this edition: December 2007
The report describes three approaches to supporting local, district and provincial governments in getting their local AIDS responses off the ground. Presenting methods and tools, outcomes and lessons learnt of GTZ-programmes in three different countries and contexts in Southern and Eastern Africa, the documentation focusses on the important interface between AIDS responses, governance and decentralisation. Like all publications of the GTZ HIV Practice Collection, it also includes a toolbox with a set of effective tools developed as part of each approach.
The report describes how, with GTZ’s technical support, the Kingdom of Lesotho, the United Republic of Tanzania and the Province of Mpumalanga in the Republic of South Africa have been empowering districts and localities to respond to AIDS. The approach, in all three cases, has been learn-as-you go. Methods and tools are developed and applied and, then, when they do not work as well as hoped, they are refined or replaced with new methods and tools. The processes of empowerment are ongoing. While it is too early to tell what the long-term results will be, the immediate results have been impressive. They include strategies and mechanisms that are streamlining the flow of available money to the front lines and putting it to work where it is most needed.