Providing technical expertise to key communities and CSOs in EECA

Why did this initiative appear?
The situation in EECA region currently is unstable and is predetermined by a very inconsistent political environment that creates challenges in ensuring sustainable, strong health care systems that is resilient to changes. In this circumstances, a real prerogative is to have the strong and powerful communities, who have capacity to influence the decision-making processes, are aware and well-trained to exercise all available tools and instruments of monitoring sphere of health-related services and have capacity to determine health-related agenda and react rapidly to any new issues.

What areas do we cover to increase communities capacity and considering the regional context?
Despite EECA is considered as one region, however, due to political situation, the context has significant differences that keep deepening and requires applying different approaches. Considering this, the team of HAC’s experts provides for wide regional representation that allow to meet specific needs of all countries in the region to provide the most effective and suitable enhancement to communities’ capacity in the areas that require so:
▪️ Community systems strengthening as part of broader interventions to strengthen resilient and sustainable system for health and community responses to HIV, TB and malaria;
▪️ Engagement of key and vulnerable populations in HIV prevention, treatment, care and support and related advocacy;
▪️ Community-led monitoring and feedback mechanisms for social accountability and to improve the responsiveness, effectiveness and impact of programs and services;
▪️ Sustainability, transition and related processes, i.e. health financing, budget accountability and advocacy, social dialogue and social contracting;
▪️ Ensuring linkage to care and engagement of vulnerable and marginalized populations, and specifically mobile populations such as internally displaced people (IDP), refugees and migrants in conflict and emergency settings (or challenging operating environments).

Who are the experts providing the technical expertise?
Our expert pool comprises of:
⁃ 100% of experts are originating from EECA region (Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Republic of Moldova, Russian Federation, Ukraine; however, some of the experts are currently residing in different countries due to political situation in the region);
⁃ 43% of experts identifying as peer community experts (PLWHIV, PWUD, SW);
⁃ 50% of experts identifying as female, trans or gender diverse;
⁃ 3% of experts below the age of 30.

How does HAC ensures the quality of the services?
We serve via technical expertise to community and CSOs by:
✔️ establishing quality standards and criteria that will be used to assess the project’s outputs and outcomes and are aligned with the project objectives;
✔️ developing or sourcing high-quality training materials and resources that are being regularly reviewed and updated as necessary to maintain their quality;
✔️ selecting best and most experienced experts as consultants, coaches, facilitators etc in the area;
✔️ implementing a robust monitoring and evaluation system to track progress, identify areas for improvement, and assess the impact of the capacity building interventions;
✔️ continuous review and improvement of practices based on the feedback received and lessons learned.