After six years, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Advancing Partners and Communities (APC) programme is coming to an end.
The project, which supported Guyana’s national HIV response through the strengthening of the institutional capacity of community-based organisations, was lauded by Minister of Public Health Volda Lawrence, who stressed that APC will be in Guyana’s public health system long after they have gone.
Throughout its existence, that programme worked closely with the Ministry of Public Health and its National AIDS Programme Secretariat, and the minister stressed that government will work to build on its successes.
Speaking at a closing out ceremony held at the Herdmanston Lodge, Lawrence said that the project has already impacted the ministry’s programme through the generation of significant data which has allowed for targeted services in Region Four. This region was found to be both the most populated area as well as the locale with the highest disease burden.
“The APC was also instrumental in the revision of the National Stigma and Discrimination policy document and made several recommendations some of which are currently being implemented by the Ministry of Public Health,” Lawrence said, adding that “in light of the reduction of donor funding, government was proactive by putting systems in place to invest in the work of NGOs…via social contracting where through domestic funds, we will be able to utilise it to continue the work started by APC.”
US Ambassador Sarah-Ann Lynch also referenced the ministry’s recent efforts to proactively engage community-based organisations in the fight against HIV by partnering with them in planning, decision-making, programme monitoring and service delivery.
“This represents a positive change in national HIV response, both in terms of service delivery as well as recognising civil society as central to a successful and sustainable approach to ending AIDS as a public health threat,” she said. Stressing that her government recognises that community-based organisations are important partners in the fight against HIV and AIDS, Lynch explained that they are key to getting prevention messages to communities, especially those most at risk of HIV.
“They are also key partners in increasing access to services through linking communities to care and treatment services and providing needed follow up and psychological support. Partnering with these organisations is critical to ensuring comprehensive client-centered programming for HIV prevention, care and treatment in Guyana,” the ambassador said.
She added that the programme worked to make organisations better able to manage themselves and play a key role in delivering essential HIV services and products.
Over the last year, according to the ambassador, the programme has reached nearly 3,000 people from key populations with prevention services and tested about 2,800 for HIV, thereby enabling them to access services early.
According to APC Chief of Party Lisa Thompson, over the six years, 29,312 individuals were reached with HIV and other prevention measures, 30,062 were tested for HIV and 424 were diagnosed as positive. Both women stressed that community-based testing and referral approaches remain a critical avenue to achieving early diagnosis and reaching key populations not accessing the health system.
APC listed among its key achievements, supporting and empowering a network of community-based organisations to provide HIV prevention, care, and treatment services to key populations such as female sex workers, men who have sex with men and the transgender community. APC also collaborated with six main treatment sites to return people living with HIV who had defaulted to care and treatment services and sensitising health care providers on stigma, discrimination, sexual orientation, and gender identity to improve their services to key populations.
According to Thompson, the programme recognised that individuals’ levels of risk are shaped by social and structural determinants; therefore, they used the social-ecological model, which provides a framework for examining the multi-level domains of HIV infection risk and its relationship to individuals’ HIV risk within the network, community, and public policy contexts.
The framework improved understanding of the key factors of HIV infection and vulnerabilities and helped define resource channels and guided development of evidence-informed combination HIV prevention programmes that can change individuals’ behaviour by confronting the underlying drivers of their vulnerability to HIV. Some of these drivers included gender-based violence, sexual orientation and stigma.
APC established an office in Guyana in July, 2013 and will conclude project activities in September, 2019. During the initial implementation phase, it collaborated with 11 organisations across the country but over the last two years, worked only with Guyana Trans United and Artistes in Direct Support.
