Sustainability of HIV Services for Key Populations in Asia
Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations (AFAO): Leading the community response to HIV
AFAO is the national federation for the HIV community response. We provide leadership, coordination and support to Australia’s policy and advocacy response to HIV.
About SKPA
The Sustainability of HIV Services for Key Populations in Asia (SKPA) Program is a Global Fund funded Multi Country Grant program being implemented in eight countries: Bhutan, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Timor-Leste. The goal of the SKPA Program is to promote sustainable services for key populations at scale to stop HIV transmissions and AIDS related deaths by 2030. Economic growth and the consequent shift to middle income status requires that grant countries within this program increase domestic investment and be more self-sufficient in the delivery of national HIV/AIDS programs. Even where staged, the challenges of transition from donor to domestic funding are acute. With diminishing donor funding, countries must be highly efficient in targeting their investments in accordance with epidemiology and mechanisms for funding community-led responses by those most affected by HIV – key populations – must be established or strengthened.
SKPA countries and the implementing partners
Key activities under the SKPA program
1) Review of package of services for Key Populations: The objective of the review of pacakge of the servies is to examine the extent to which currently available services for KPs in each country reflect the package of services against normative guidance (ie the WHO recommended service package), taking into consideration accessibility, utilization, coverage and any gaps in service provision. Under SKPA grant the review of package of services for KPs is done in Sri Lanka; Mongolia, Lao PDR and Bhutan.
2) Develop and implement action plans for achieving sustainable financing for implementation of KP interventions and social contracting mechanism for CSOs
3) Community Based Monitoring (CBM) to gather & use information on improving the quality & access to services:
4) Demand Generation (DG) campaigns to generate demand among KPs for HIV services
5) Advocacy for transgender friendly services & support in hormone replacement therapy
6) Advocacy for the engagement of young key populations
7) Address stigma and discrimination in health care settings and implement feedback mechanism
8) Phased implementation of community based testing; self-testing & pre-exposure prophylaxis
9) Population size estimation and rapid assessment of key populations
10) Gender review to identify barriers, generate recommendations and implement action plans
11) Capacity building support for strengthening community based organisations
12) Development of sustainability plans for the regional networks.
