Benchmarking sustainability of the HIV response in the context of transition from donor funding. A methodological guide

By Eurasian Harm Reduction Association

This Transition Monitoring Tool was developed to assist key affected communities to stay more informed and engaged in the monitoring of the transition process and to thereby advocate for the sustainability of national HIV responses.

Based on the Global Fund’s vision, sustainability and transition are now integral parts of any grant; in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region, transition process is advanced. Although the respective governments have declared a set of commitments with regards to the HIV response, information is scarce as to where the public sector stands in terms of the fulfillment of those obligations. This limits the capacity of communities to identify shortcomings and to advocate for the development of solutions to address such shortcomings.

To strengthen community engagement in the transition and sustainability process of national HIV responses, this Transition Monitoring Tool has been designed to collect and evaluate the achievement of countries with regards to the commitments made and to benchmark those achievements between countries using the following core components:– Identification of key public commitments with respect to HIV responses for key populations;

– Engagement of communities and national experts through consultations in the assessment process;

– Development of a matrix for data collection and analysis which will facilitate repetition of the process in the future; and,

– Calculation of transition scores for programmes for key populations by component, referred to as Health System Domains in this Tool.

This Tool is primarily designed to trace commitments by governments which have been stated in public documents; however, the opinions of communities and experts are included in identifying priority commitments for the purpose of monitoring, and for filling in information gaps where commitments are not clearly defined for the purpose of monitoring.

The publication was created in 2020 by Eurasian Harm Reduction Association (EHRA) and published within the framework of the regional project called “Sustainability of Services for Key Populations in Eastern Europe and Central Asia which is carried out by the Alliance for Public Health, in a consortium with the 100% Life (All-Ukrainian Network of PLWH), the Central Asian HIV’ Association and the Eurasian Key Populations Health Network with the aid from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.