How we make a difference

Mark Chilongo rehearses a play about stigma with a drama group, Zambia. © 2004 Gideon Mendel for International HIV/AIDS Alliance

The Alliance and its partners make a difference at community, national and international levels.

The Alliance champions participatory approaches to HIV that empower local people and that are based on local needs. In turn, the Alliance learns from these community partnerships and uses these experiences to promote effective HIV strategies more broadly – encouraging better programmes and better public policy. Research implemented by the Alliance and the Horizons Project has demonstrated both the importance of involving people living with HIV and how to do so effectively.

Alliance training materials have helped foster multi-sectoral partnerships and exchange between non-governmental organisations, businesses and governments in countries of Latin America, Africa and Asia. Needs assessments have helped articulate the priorities of children affected by HIV, while programme design tools help increasing numbers of non-governmental organisations to link support work for orphans and vulnerable children to HIV prevention and care. Our community-based support for orphans and vulnerable children and their carers has demonstrated that, in a short space of time, it is possible to establish and scale up community-based support activities.

What the Alliance learns from community-based partnerships is used to help people living with HIV and other affected community members to influence laws and policies in several countries. Together, we are strengthening United Nations action declarations and programme frameworks, promoting effective global AIDS strategies and influencing international policies – including the European Union, UNAIDS and Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria.

Repeated external evaluations and the testimonies of people living with HIV have demonstrated that the Alliance's work is effective and efficient:

  • "a key player in the effort to slow the HIV/AIDS epidemic"
  • "reducing the suffering of people living with HIV/AIDS and improving the quality of their lives and the lives of their families and caregivers"
  • "donors have received outstanding return on investment"
  • "after knowing that I am infected, I always ask all the clients to wear a condom."

"We are proud to be one of the founders of the Alliance and very much value their work and international standing." Gareth Thomas, MP, British Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development.