1 / 30

Summing up the results of the Regional Advocacy Campaign

Summing up the results of the Regional Advocacy Campaign Access to HIV treatment, implemented by Eastern Europe and Central Asia Union of People Living with HIV (ECUO) July 23, 2014 AIDS 2014 Conference. East Europe and Central Asia Union of People Living with HIV (ECUO).

hedwig
Download Presentation

Summing up the results of the Regional Advocacy Campaign

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Summing up the results of the Regional Advocacy Campaign Access to HIV treatment, implemented by Eastern Europe and Central Asia Union of People Living with HIV (ECUO) July 23, 2014 AIDS 2014 Conference

  2. East Europe and Central Asia Union of People Living with HIV (ECUO) • Regional Network of PLWH networks from 16 countries • ECUO was established in 2005 and registered in 2007 • ECUO Secretariat is based in Kiev, Ukraine

  3. ECUO members are PLWH organizations from 16 countries of EECA region • Azerbaijan • Armenia • Belarus • Georgia • Kazakhstan • Kyrgyzstan • Latvia • Lithuania • Moldova • Mongolia • Poland • Russia • Tajikistan • Uzbekistan • Ukraine • Estonia

  4. ECUO Mission To increase the influence of PLWH Community on scaling up access to timely, comprehensive and qualitative treatment, care and support for adults and children living with HIV in EECA through effective partnership and active advocacy efforts

  5. Background • Eastern Europe & Central Asia (EECA) is a region with fastest growing HIV epidemic in the world. • Access to ARV treatment generally in the region is the second lowest in the world, with only 25% of people in need of treatment receiving it at the end of 2012 (UNAIDS). • Main donor supporting ART procurement for almost entire region (except Russia), the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GF), is phasing out its current funding. All the Governments are should be forced to allocate public funding and gradually overtake full responsibility for ARV patients enrolled through GF grants.

  6. The Regional Advocacy Campaign “Health can be bought. Price is included into budget!” The Campaign aimed to increase public financing for ART was initiated, elaborated and implemented by ECUO since April 2013 in 7 countries as a part of the ECUO Regional Advocacy Strategy on ensuring sustainable access to qualitative ARV-treatment for all who need it in the region.

  7. The Territory and Partners of the Campaign • Armenia:“Real World, Real People”, NGO • Azerbaijan:“Public Union Against AIDS”, NGO • Belarus:Belarusian Community of PLWH • Georgia:“Real People, Real Vision”, NGO • Moldova:League of PLWH of Moldova • Russia: All-Russian Union of PLWH • Ukraine: All-Ukrainian Network of PLWH

  8. The methods of the Regional Advocacy Campaign implementation in the countries • Designing the National Advocacy Action Plans to amend laws and make governments responsible for public funding for ART in 7 countries More than 40 separate activities, aimed at attraction of stakeholders’ attention to the issues of access to ART were conducted in 7 countries UNDER ONE SLOGAN, ONE BRANDING and MESSAGING: • Round tables with officials • Press-conferences • Petitions • Street actions etc.

  9. Messages and Branding Health Can Be Bought! The Price is in the Budget! There are drugs – There is no time! Treat today –Save tomorrow! HIV is not transmitted when treated! Treatment is our right – your obligation is to treat!

  10. Organizational and advocacy capacity building of the Campaign partners • More than 30 educative workshops, meetings and consultations were conducted for the participants of the Regional Campaign • More than 20 technical support visits took places. The strategic plans and fundraising plans as well as operational manuals have been developed and implemented in 7 PLWH community organizations.

  11. “Thank You for Cooperation” award ECUO initiated “Thank You for Cooperation” award to enlist authorities’ support on the issue of ensuring the treatment for PLWH for the state budget means

  12. “Thank you for Cooperation” Award

  13. “I have a power to Live“ Campaign as a part of RAC in Ukraine

  14. Belarus

  15. Moldova: Actions aimed at attracting the attention of the publicity to the importance of access to ART • Autocross Championship gained more than 5000 of participants. 46 autopilots called: There is a Treatment! There is no Time! • The TV debates with participation of the Ministry of Health, the Head of Parliament Commission on Health and Social Protection and the representative of PLWH League of Moldovawere conducted.

  16. Armenia: Public Campaign – Protect Our Society from AIDS Aimed at familiarization the wider society with the conceptual vision of “Treatment as Prevention” and the concept of “community viral load”

  17. Russia • Different situation - 100% of the state funding for ART. • The main problem – decentralization of ART procurements which lead to treatment interruptions and overpricing. • In 13 regions the community representatives have been included  into the Regional Public Councils for Protection Of Patients' Rights at Roszdravnadzor. • Street Actions and press-conferences were conducted. • All-Russian Union of PLWH took part in the public monitoring of treatment interruptions, initiated by ITPC.ru, Patient Control and other civil society organizations.

  18. REGIONAL monitoring of access to ART in the EECA countries – creating the country profiles

  19. The results of the Regional Advocacy Campaign “Health Can Be Bought! The Price is in the Budget” • Firstly Azerbaijan will allocate 100% of the state funds for ARV-medicines in 2014 • In Ukraine the Government approved a draft law "On Ratification of the National Target Programme to Combat Social HIV-infection/AIDS for 2014-2018 years." The Program fully addresses to the needs for ART public procurement. Reducing the morbidity and mortality from HIV/AIDS by providing quality and affordable health care, especially among high-risk groups, as well as services for treatment, care and support for PLWH was laid down in the Program’ basis. • In Russia PLWHUnion’s representatives were included to the regional Councils on patients’ rights protection, which provides an additional opportunity to lobby for the PLWH rights on access to treatment.

  20. The results of the Campaign • Armenian and Belarusian Governments officialy confirmed their readiness to ensure sustainable access to ART after GF phase out. • In Armenia state budget for AIDS program was increased for 14%. • First time ever in Belarus (2013) and Moldova (2014) ART are partially procured for the state funds. • In 2013 GF has agreed on prioritize scaling up ART safeguarded by State budget (the approach promoted & pursued by ECUO) and included transition plan for ART patients enrolled through the GF grants to be picked up/transferred to the public funding presence as a requirement for country application. Such transition plan was already endorsed by Georgian Government.

  21. The results of the Campaign

  22. Support of the Regional Advocacy Campaign The Regional Advocacy Campaign “Health Can Be Bought” was realized in the partnership with international, regional, national organizations, agencies, foundations and executive authorities representatives With the support ofEuropean Union, Aids Fonds, UNAIDS, Robert Carr civil society Networks Fund  (RCNF), ViiV Healthcare.

  23. Favourable conditions and circumstances that contributed to bring out the positive change • Attention of decision makers, international society, donors to HIV/AIDS epidemic growth in the EECA region is attracted as well as attention and awareness of politicians, decision makers and stakeholders inside the region. Importance of combating the epidemic is recognized. • NFM, opportunity to apply for regional proposals - new procedures of CFATM – main donor in the region – provide more opportunities for involvement of community, for work in the field of advocacy, for pushing positive changes inside the countries and across the region. • Integration of the Key Affected Populations into advocacy campaign on access to ART (Regional Advisory Group on scaling up access to treatment in EECA was established by ECUO in 2013 and includes the representatives from international organizations, NGOs, governmental organizations and key affected populations).

  24. Challenging circumstances • Politically unstable situation in many countries of the region, wars, conflicts, frequent changes of government - hinder the work in advocacy field • The disengagement and the polarization of the region, processes are taking place rapidly, often there is no possibility have the time or resources to influence the process • Misclassification of the World Bank, which does not reflect the real situation in the economy of countries and their real potentials and solvency, which is used by international structures for estimating ability of countries to receive support, as well as used by pharmaceutical companies for pricing - led to significant constraints and reduce opportunities for the majority of countries in the region to expand access to treatment

  25. Conclusions • Mobilized PLWH’s advocacy efforts can ensure sustainable access to ART in 7countries of EECA via increased state budgeting ART and impact on national policies. • It’s important to unite the efforts of PLWH community, state authorities and all the stakeholders to ensure the inclusion of the item expenditure for ART procurement into the national budgets • The regional advocacy campaigns implemented by the civil society organizations even being the only one driven force could make significant impact to ensure that the government takes the leading role in provision of their citizens with timely, comprehensive, qualitative and sustainable treatment

  26. Next steps: • To continue implementation of the Regional Advocacy Campaign on access to ART • To ensure linkages between the prevention and treatment programs • Advocacy of increasing the state funds for attraction of PLWH, in particular from the key affected groups, into the testing and treatment programs and their retention • Advocacy for approval of the official plans of transferring services financed from the GFATM projects to the state financing in the EECA region countries.

  27. Thank you for your attention! www.ecuo.org, olya.a@ecuo.org, Olga Aleksandrova

More Related