UNAIDS Projects

• World AIDS Campaign
• Strategic Planning Project
• Catalytic Projects

World AIDS Campaign:

Men Make a Difference was the title of the first year's UNAIDS campaign focused on the role of men in the AIDS epidemic. The new Campaign aims to involve men more fully in the effort against AIDS and to bring about a much-needed focus on men in national responses to the epidemic. In 2000, the Campaign pursued three broad goals. The first was to raise awareness of the relationship between men's behaviour and HIV. The second was to encourage men and adolescent boys to make a strong commitment to preventing the spread of HIV and caring for those affected. And the third goal was to promote programmes that respond to the needs of both men and women.

Strategic Planning Project

Striving for the expanded response to HIV/AIDS, UNAIDS supports efforts of the countries willing to adopt more strategic approach to planning for HIV. Strategic planning is a flexible tool that allows governments to meet the specific needs of the country, to attack the particular situations that make people vulnerable to HIV and its impact, and make use of the particular strengths of the country's people and institutions. A four-module UNAIDS Guide on the Strategic Planning Process for a National Response to HIV/AIDS is available at http://www.unaids.org.

The Strategic Planning Project (SPP) has been implemented in the Russian Federation in 1998 - 2000 with the support of the UNTG on HIV/AIDS. The main goals of the project were to strengthen the national capacity to develop and implement a national strategy for the prevention of the HIV epidemic and mitigation of its impact, and to reinforce the HIV/AIDS prevention among young people. Seven federal ministries and seventeen Russian territories participated in the strategic planning process. The regional project partners represented both state and non-governmental sectors.

The four principal stages of the process were in-depth situation and response analyses, strategy formulation and resource mobilisation. Multisectoral teams, with the assistance of the State Research Institute of Family and Education, carried out the in-depth analyses in the SPP-participating regions. Based on the analyses findings, the project partners identified key factors influencing the development of the HIV epidemic in the country and agreed upon the strategic priorities comprising both urgent actions to respond to existing and potential epidemics in selected populations (such as injecting drug users, sex workers and young people in crisis) and systemic actions to protect the general population (including: national-level planning and coordination; political advocacy; review of relevant legislation; professional capacity building; and public education). In April 2000 the High Level Working Meeting approved the strategic priorities.

The strategic priorities were reflected in the Joint Response to the HIV/AIDS Epidemic in the Russian Federation 2001 - 2003 Initiative launched in November 2000 at the International Donors' Meeting. The Initiative, coordinated through the UNTG on HIV/AIDS and the UNAIDS Secretariat, aims to mobilise a joint and concerted response to support the implementation of an integrated and comprehensive HIV/AIDS strategy in the Russian Federation for the period 2001-2003. The Initiative will bring together a range of UN agencies, working in partnership with the Government, bilateral agencies, international non-governmental organisations and other local partners, to implement a programme of work that will strengthen and complement already existing and planned HIV/AIDS control efforts in the country.

The Initiative aims to assist with the immediate response, supporting activities that target four priority areas:
· Establishment of a national HIV/AIDS committee, development and implementation of the strategy
· HIV/STI prevention among injecting drug users
· HIV/STI prevention among sex workers
· HIV/STI prevention among vulnerable young people and other vulnerable groups

The broader, systemic response to the epidemic will be supported through additional strategic areas and associated activities, which include:
· STI prevention and care
· Prevention in prisons
· Surveillance
· Public education
· Prevention of mother-to-child transmission
· Blood safety and prevention of nosocomial infection
· HIV/AIDS treatment and care

Catalytic projects:

UNAIDS offers technical and financial support to selected projects, mainly small-scale, implemented by local non-governmental and state organisations in specific Russian territories, provided that the projects can play a catalytic role in enhancing political advocacy, broadening public information, strengthening professional and institutional capacity of GO and NGO actors and supporting the strategic planning process.

Chronologically, the following activities have been supported by UNAIDS: