Senegal

Alliance linking organisation: Alliance Nationale Contre le SIDA (ANCS)

Hairdressers wishing to remain anonymous pose for a photograph at a prevention workshop © 2007 Nell Freeman for Alliance

Senegal is a politically stable, predominantly Muslim country, with one of the lowest rates of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2006, there were an estimated 61,000 people living with HIV (0.9% of adults).

While the survey data shows the epidemic to be stable among the general population, HIV has disproportionately affected the very poor, particularly those involved in sex work or migrant labour. HIV prevalence among commercial sex wokers is now estimated at between 15% and 20%. There are also big regional disparities, with Kolda and Ziguinchor regions in the south of Senegal recording rates of 2.8% and 2.35 respectively.

Despite this situation, Senegal is often held up by the international community as a success story for the way that it has managed to bring its prevalence rate under control. This success is due partly to the prompt action of the government but, above all, to the massive involvement of community-based organisations, which have made huge efforts to implement prevention activities.

What we do

Since 1995, Alliance Nationale Contre le SIDA (ANCS) has been working to support a broad range of community HIV programmes. ANCS’s leadership is acknowledged in Senegal for the scale and quality of its community-level interventions, as well as its commitment to and skills in, organisational capacity building and developing and sharing tools.

ANCS has supported several hundred non-governmental and community-based organisations to increase access of vulnerable populations to prevention, community and home-based care, facilitating impact mitigation and capacity-building activities. ANCS has also been especially active in border areas and conflict zones in order to reach highly vulnerable and underserved populations such as mobile populations and the military. There is also a strong emphasis on supporting activities at national level on policy and advocacy.

What we have achieved

The Alliance and ANCS have designed HIV prevention strategies to reach large numbers of people with information (particularly in underserved rural areas) and have continued to expand the geographical areas covered, especially to border zones. At the same time, we have prioritised targeting more vulnerable groups with participatory prevention activities such as peer education and discussion groups.

In the first programme of its kind in Senegal, the Alliance has successfully supported an innovative pilot community initiative to reach men who have sex with men with prevention and awareness-raising activities. We have also supported the development of a programme to reach drug users in Dakar, including those involved in commercial sex and military men, through peer education. This programme has not been without its challenges: fears of stigmatisation, problems finding a safe space for discussion groups and difficulties in the organisational capacity of local non-governmental organisations have all slowed down implementation.

ANCS, with the support of the Alliance, is responsible for sexually transmitted infection/HIV prevention as part of a large-scale collaborative programme aimed at improving health in rural districts. The experience of ANCS in community participation has been heavily drawn upon to develop tools and implement training for medical staff on a local, regional and national level. This has led to the establishment and training of 123 associations of community agents.

The Alliance also supports many groups of people living with HIV. In 2004, we organised innovative training on community awareness around anti-retroviral treatment for people living with HIV and medical professionals. The community organisations supported by the Alliance through ANCS will become a key part of the government’s plan to roll out anti-retroviral treatment in Senegal – a reflection of how far our work has helped to influence the importance of community participation in the country.

ANCS also works closely with networks of parliamentarians and journalists to maintain a positive policy environment for HIV work. In addition, ANCS is a member of several key national committees for steering policy and strategy development.

Future plans

The Alliance urgently needs innovative systems to support and implement the scale-up of prevention activities that is now required. Alliance-supported programmes will continue to offer organisations training in delivering community-based awareness-raising activities, and will mobilise and support vulnerable groups to carry out participatory prevention activities – especially in under-served zones and border areas.

Read more about ANCS