Partners

ANANDER

Rapid Expansion of Access to HIV/AIDS Prevention, Care, and Treatment Interventions Among Rural and Other Underserved Populations in Côte d’Ivoire

Award:

$4 million over 4 years from PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief).
Recipient: National Agency for Support to Rural Development (ANADER), with sub-partners REPMASCI (Network of media professionals and artists fighting against HIV/AIDS), Population Services International CI, and ACONDA-VS CI. Other collaborators: MSD Interpharma, International HIV/AIDS Alliance, and RIP+ (Network of Persons Living With HIV/AIDS).

Purpose:

To provide HIV/AIDS prevention and care and expand access to comprehensive HIV/AIDS care and treatment services for rural residents in six regions (Zanzan, Bas- and Haut-Sassandra, Lagunes, Fromager, Moyen-Comoe), with a view to national scale-up.
Background: About 60% of Côte d’Ivoire’s population lives in rural areas marked by low literacy rates and inadequate health and social services. To date, HIV services have been concentrated in Abidjan and other urban centers.
Activities will include:

• Community mobilization centered on village committees for local appropriation of the fight against HIV/AIDS.
  
• Community-based campaigns to promote safe sexual behavior. Influential figures, religious and traditional leaders, teachers, journalists, and peers will work through radio in local languages, theater, schools, churches, etc. to prevent HIV infections.
  
• Provision of confidential HIV counseling and testing, including use of mobile testing units linked to testing centers.
  
• Education about and referral to treatment and care, including antiretroviral therapy.
  
• Care for orphans and vulnerable children; income-generating support for families.
  
• Improvement of links to health center-based prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission and HIV and TB treatment services.

Impacts:

• HIV counseling and testing for more than 100,000 people
  
• HIV sensitization for 300,000 people
  
• 300 radio programs and 4,500 radio publicity spots in eight languages
  
• 700 people trained to provide HIV prevention
  
• Care and support for 7,000 orphans and vulnerable children
  
• Strengthening of 200 village action committees and other groups (agricultural, youth, women’s) to ensure sustainability of community response to HIV/AIDS.

Project highlights:

• Major component of national decentralized scale-up of HIV/AIDS response.
  
• Complements broad range of HIV projects in Côte d’Ivoire supported by $33 million (2005) in PEPFAR funds plus U.S. contribution to Global Fund.
  
• Broad collaborative effort builds on strong existing structures (ANADER and public/private health centers) and HIV/AIDS expertise (REPMASCI, PSI, ACONDA).
  

More information:

Nathalie Konan Bogui, project director, ANADER, (225) 20.22.05.29/07.80.18.68