Strengthening community engagement and capacity on CLM in Central Asia

Why do we initiate such a project? Our team is dedicated to advocate for, empower and strengthen the capacity of community-led organizations as it contributes to advancing their role in accountability of HIV and health programmes as well as in community-led monitoring (CLM) and research in Central Asia.

Which countries are covered? Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

What are the main objectives?
1️⃣ To build capacity of civil society organizations (CSOs) conducting CLM in focus countries based on the needs identified,
2️⃣ And support institutionalization and sustainability of CLM in EECA region and specifically in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan based on the recommendations generated and next steps identified.

What’s aproach?
Development of the long-term roadmaps that meet specific country needs and can be adjusted to the changes of the national context will serve well for the work groups on CLM in each country and will be used as guidelines for communities to ensure successful institutionalization of the CLM data. While HAC provided technical assistance in fundraising for CLM that allowed to receive sufficient funding for these activities, creating of the work groups with different stakeholders representation will ensure better communication between community organizations and international agencies, as well as government in both: planning and fundraising for CLM in strategic perspective.

Yet it is expected that the most sufficient results will be reached when the work groups on CLM will start their work in full capacity – this will give an opportunity to speed up processes and ensure decision-making on the official level that might also result in changes to the legislative framework.

Who will benefit in the short-term perspective?

• CSOs and community networks in 4 focus countries
• Key stakeholders from different sectors including government partners (decision-makers, healthcare specialists, epidemiologists etc)
• Regional and global both communities and networks as the project will complement their related initiatives and provide them with additional information on CLM activities, barriers, CSOs capacity in the focus countries
• International partners and donors

What results are expected in the longer-term perspective?
We anticipate that project implementation will result in improved policies for community involvement and community-led service delivery, improved representation, and engagement of community networks in multi-stakeholder decision-making platforms. Eventually it will lead to better programmes and services for people living with HIV and key populations which can be considered as major beneficiaries in the longer-term perspective.

Who finances such activities?
The project is funded by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) under a cooperative agreement with UNAIDS.

With whom do we cooperate?
During the implementation HAC has actively collaborated not only the with national community organizations in focus countries, but also with  the international agencies and their country offices (USAID, CDC, UNAIDS, GF, UNDP etc).

Following the link you can read the latest update on project progress.