Monitoring and Evaluation of the Emergency Plan Progress (MEEPP): End-of-project evaluation

This report evaluates the scope of the Monitoring and Evaluation of the Emergency Plan Progress (MEEPP) and the lessons learned from the project in Uganda, which aims to improve availability and quality of PEPFAR data

Protecting hope: Situation analysis of vulnerable children in Uganda 2009

The Government of Uganda has focused attention on the problem of orphaned and other vulnerable children through a number of policies, regulations, and initiatives. In 2004, the Ministry of Gender Labor and Social Development developed the National OVC Policy, aimed at improving the quality of life for poor and vulnerable children, such as children who have been orphaned, children who are living on the streets, children who are at risk of abuse, and children exposed to situations of armed conflict. However, despite the many efforts to improve the circumstances of vulnerable children in Uganda, policymakers, donors, and program managers still lack comprehensive and up-to-date information about their numbers, geographic distribution, characteristics, and needs. Furthermore, documentation of existing programs addressing the circumstances of vulnerable children is limited. To address these needs, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)/Uganda contracted the Population Council and its partners, Uganda Bureau of Statistics and Mathematica Policy Research, to conduct a situation analysis of vulnerable children in Uganda. The situation analysis aims to increase the understanding of the scope of the problem of vulnerable children and the response to it, including the full spectrum of core services, in order to facilitate country-wide planning and to inform current and future programming efforts

Situation assessment of the HIV response among young people in Zambia

The main objective of this situational assessment is to compile and synthesize existing recent information on HIV and young people together with the current AIDS response for young people in Zambia—including programs, policies, and key partners—and to document gaps and challenges in the response. The assessment aims to further strengthen this response by all stakeholders including the Government of the Republic of Zambia, the UN, faith-based organizations, civil society organizations, donors, young people, and youth-led organizations. Recommendations include: amending and strengthening laws related to HIV programming for young people and involving them in design and implementation; offering health services, life skills, and HIV education; developing program guidelines, including monitoring and evaluation; and allowing the Joint United Nations Team on AIDS to take a leading role

Programme recommendations for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV: A practical guide for managers

UNAIDS estimates that 800,000 children were infected with HIV in 2001, almost all through transmission of the virus from their mothers during pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding. Of these, seven of each eight live in sub-Saharan Africa and most of the rest live in South and Southeast Asia. To combat mother-to-child transmission of HIV (MTCT), in 1999 the UNAIDS Secretariat, UNFPA, UNICEF, and WHO launched the Inter Agency Task Team on Prevention of HIV Transmission in Pregnant Women, Mothers, and Their Children (IATT), which provides guidance for prevention of MTCT (PMTCT). In the view of the IATT, PMTCT is part of broader strategies to prevent the transmission of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases, to care for HIV-positive women and their families, and to promote maternal-child health. The IATT has proposed a four-pronged approach for the prevention of HIV transmission to pregnant women, mothers, and their children, yet significant financial and technical challenges remain. To address these challenges, UNICEF has supported 11 pilot projects in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This HIV/AIDS working paper provides guidance for improving and scaling up PMTCT programs, based on what program managers and evaluators identify as successful strategies

Integrating HIV prevention and care into maternal and child health care settings: Lessons learned from Horizons studies

Many women in the developing world still lack access to high-quality HIV/AIDS prevention and care services. To address this problem, Horizons has undertaken a range of operations research efforts that examine the integration of HIV-related care in the maternal-child health setting. At a workshop held in Kenya in July 2001, participants discussed the experience to date and formulated practical strategies for improving the integration. This consultation report summarizes that discussion according to the following seven key program components: Training and Motivation to Improve the Performance of Health Workers; Supervision of HIV Services and Quality Assurance of HIV Testing; Caring for Mothers; Voluntary Counseling and Testing Services; Counseling on Infant Feeding; Provision of Antiretroviral Drugs to Reduce Mother-to-Child Transmission; Involving Male Partners

Evaluation of United Nations-supported pilot projects for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV: Overview of findings

Worldwide about 800,000 children a year get HIV infections from their mothers—either during pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding. Countries have the potential to prevent a large share of these infections through low-cost, effective interventions. UN agencies have taken the lead in helping developing countries mount programs for prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT). This working paper presents key findings from an evaluation of UN-supported pilot PMTCT projects in 11 countries: Botswana, Burundi, Cote d’Ivoire, Honduras, India, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Key findings include feasibility and coverage, factors contributing to program coverage, program challenges, scaling up, the special case of low-prevalence countries, and recommendations. The pilot experience has shown that introducing PMTCT programs into antenatal care in a wide variety of settings is feasible and acceptable to a significant proportion of antenatal care clients who have a demand for HIV information, counseling, and testing. As they go to scale, PMTCT programs can learn from the pilot phase, during which hundreds of thousands of clients were successfully reached

Knowing myself first : Feasibility of self-testing among health workers in Kenya

Report of a study exploring the feasibility and acceptability of free HIV home self-testing among health workers in Kenya, within the range of other HIV testing options available

Implementing incentive-based HIV interventions in Zambia: The COMPACT model

The Population Council received a cooperative agreement from USAID to implement the Community Mobilization for Preventive Action (COMPACT) project, to develop and determine the feasibility of “community compacts” as an innovative approach to prevent HIV in Zambian communities. The aim is to mobilize the communities through a capacity-building process that enables them to identify HIV prevention targets, develop interventions to achieve those targets, and measure the results. This study determined baseline levels of key indicators related to HIV, sexual behaviors, gender-based violence, alcohol abuse, and reproductive health. These baseline measures will be compared with midline and endline levels to assess COMPACT’s programmatic success. Additionally, the baseline findings provided critical insights into key areas for interventions in these four communities and highlighted variability in the populations across the communities and between males and females that provide valuable guidance for programming

Introduction: Going Public

The period in which the public history movement has developed has been one of considerable change. This has been a result of the passing of post-war generations, the effects wrought by continuing internal and external conflicts, the globalisation of economies, the emergence of new media forms and the major impact of the digital revolution. This has seen significant shifts in the transmission, reception and practice of history

Technical assistance to the Uganda AIDS Commission for operationallisation of the performance monitoring and management plan

The Uganda AIDS Commission (UAC) has committed to rolling out and making operational a new National Performance Monitoring and Management Plan (PMMP) to monitor and evaluate the national response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The PMMP has at its core the collection and processing of 58 national indicators, 47 district output indicators, and 22 outcome indicators covering prevention, care, treatment, and social support. The rollout is challenging because at least seven organizations must collaborate at the national level, and appropriate staff at the district level need to be in place and trained in new procedures of data collection. In addition, these data are to be supplied to district planning organizations that may or may not be functioning and the cooperation of civil society organizations is necessary even though their participation is voluntary. The Population Council and Makerere University School of Public Health were funded by USAID/Uganda to assist the UAC in assessing these challenges and determining appropriate procedures for creating a successful rollout of the new PMMP system. This final report focuses on recommendations for successful completion of the rollout