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The International HIV/AIDS Alliance
Established in 1993 with a Secretariat in Brighton, UK, the International HIV/AIDS Alliance is a global partnership of people, organisations and communities working towards a shared vision that supports effective and integrated community responses to HIV and AIDS. This approach is based on the belief that those at the frontline of the struggle against HIV and AIDS must have the resources to take on the challenges that the epidemic presents.
The Alliance operates through a global network of in-country intermediary non-governmental organisations, known by the Alliance as Linking Organisations (LOs), who in turn work with partnerships and networks of NGOs and other community-based organisations (CBOs) to mobilise, facilitate and scale-up sustainable community-based response to HIV and AIDS. This is achieved through building their capacity, and in the process, developing synergy of resources and the ability to collectively mobilise resources and influence policy at different levels. Through the joint actions of its partners, the Alliance has established itself as a leading player in the global response to the HIV and AIDS epidemic.
The India HIV/AIDS Alliance
The India HIV/AIDS Alliance (or, Alliance India) was established in 1999 to expand and intensify the International HIV/AIDS Alliance’s global strategy of supporting community action to reduce the spread of HIV and mitigate the impact of AIDS. It comprises a country-based Alliance Secretariat in New Delhi, 5 linking organisations (LO) – Vasavya Mahila Mandali, Palmyrah Workers’ Development Society, Mamta, Lepra Society and Alliance for AIDS Action – and their networks of over 100 community-based NGOs and CBOs across 4 states – Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Delhi. The Alliance has also been working with a state partner, Social Awareness Service Organisation in Manipur.
In 2007, Alliance India supported over 120 community-based projects through its NGO and CBO partners to prevent HIV infection; improve access to HIV treatment, care and support; and lessen the impact of HIV and AIDS, including reducing stigma and discrimination, particularly among the most vulnerable and marginalised communities key to the epidemic – such as sex workers, men who have sex with men (MSM), injecting drug users (IDU) and adults and children living with and/or affected by HIV and AIDS, with an emphasis on local leadership and responsibility.
With funding from the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), awarded to the Alliance in July 2007, the partnership in India has been broadened to include two new project-based LO relationships with two external organisations – Plan India and Catholic Relief Services – and their networks of implementing NGO partners.
Our Vision
The vision of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance is of a world in which people do not die of AIDS.
For us this means a world in which all human rights are respected: a world where every person can live with dignity, regardless of their gender, religion, class, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation; and where communities have brought HIV and AIDS under control through promoting and facilitating access to affordable and appropriate prevention, care, support and treatment information and services.
Strategic Framework 2008-10
Impact 2010 – the International HIV/AIDS Alliance’s global Strategic Framework 2008-10, includes four Strategic Directions:
Strategic Direction 1: Scale up quality responses
Deliver scaled-up, quality community-based HIV programmes and increase access to health and social services
Direction 2: Strengthen civil society
Increase civil society capacity to implement effective community responses
Strategic Direction 3: Improve HIV policies
Strengthen communities’ ability to influence national programming and national and international HIV policies
Strategic Direction 4: Build an effective Alliance
Build up an Alliance of national linking organisations working effectively together
To read the Alliance’s Strategic Framework 2008-10 in detail, you can download the document
Impact 2010.
Priorities for Alliance India: 2008-10
Emerging strategic priorities for Alliance India have been identified in line with national government priorities, particularly in the context of the new National AIDS Control Programme (NACP) – III, international goals and priorities such as the ‘Three Ones’, and within the context of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance’s global Strategic Framework 2008-10.
From 2008 onwards, the programming and policy priorities for India will focus on:
“Scaling up quality programming and policy work which demonstrates impact through community action and engagement, and which contributes to achieving universal access to comprehensive HIV services, and related social and health services.”
Specifically:
- Scaling up district-level coverage of home and community based care and support – especially for children affected by HIV and their families – and facilitating community-level access to HIV treatment by strengthening partnerships and linkages with the public sector.
- Scaling up focused prevention activities at the district level, particularly with vulnerable and marginalised communities – including people living with HIV, and other groups key to the dynamics of the epidemic such as people who sell or buy sex (women, men and transgenders), men who have sex with men and injecting drug users.
- Integrating HIV with broader sexual and reproductive health services for women made vulnerable to HIV by social, cultural and economic inequalities, and at the same time addressing the needs and the active engagement of men and boys.
- Ensuring the meaningful and active involvement of marginalised groups in all aspects of the AIDS response including supporting civil society to be government policy partners and advocating for changes in legislation and policies which exclude, marginalise or criminalise people living with and others linked with HIV such as people who use drugs, sex workers and men who have sex with men.
Areas of Programming
- Home and Community-Based Care and Support with a focus on those living with HIV and including children and families affected by AIDS: CHAHA
- Focused Prevention with interventions for ‘key populations’ – sex workers, men who have sex with men, injecting drug users, and people living with HIV: The Avahan Initiative and the Frontier Prevention Project (FPP)
- Harm Reduction and Care and Support for IDUs (male and female), especially those living with HIV, their care givers/families and communities
- Access to Treatment focussing on developing a model for increasing access by key populations to HIV-related treatment through strengthening linkages between communities and public health treatment facilities: The START-AP Project
Click on the map areas to know more about the projects and the implementing NGOs.
Our Donors and Institutional Partners
The India HIV/AIDS Alliance gratefully acknowledges the support of the European Union, UNAIDS, USAID, the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Abbott Fund, the Department for International Development (DFID) – Challenge Fund, the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), Johnson & Johnson, Hewlette Foundation, the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) and State AIDS Control Societies (SACS) of the Government of India.