ICDDR,B strengthens capacity of service providers to ensure effective HIV/AIDS interventions.

Bangladesh is a low prevalence country for HIV but there are several factors that are conducive to the spread of the infection such as the practice of unsafe sex among sex workers and their clients, sharing of used needles/syringes among people who inject drugs (PWID), high prevalence of HIV in neighbouring countries, etc. The last serological surveillance for HIV conducted in 2006 indicates a concentrated epidemic in the capital city Dhaka, amongst male PWID, where prevalence has risen from 4.9% to 7%, and up to 10.5% in one area.

Targeted interventions

Since 1997, targeted interventions have been implemented focussing on the most-at-risk populations (MARPs), including female sex workers (FSW) and their male clients, PWID, males having sex with males (MSM), and hijra. Intervention packages included condom promotion and distribution, STI management, needle/syringe programmes (for PWID), peer education, health education/counselling, provision of rest/recreation facility, building community awareness and local level advocacy. Improving capacity of the implementing organisations remains as a key challenge in implementation and scaling up of effective interventions to fight against HIV/AIDS in Bangladesh and in South Asia in general.
 

Capacity building in the South Asia region

The South Asia Technical Support Facility (TSF) is an initiative managed by Action Aid International as a lead in partnership with ICDDR,B and TATA Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) India, with funding support from UNAIDS. The TSF is based in Kathmandu, Nepal and mandates to provide high quality, short-term technical support in strategic areas of planning, management, and implementation of HIV/AIDS programmes in the South Asia region. As a partner of TSF, ICDDR,B organised a three-day workshop during December 19-21, 2010. The title of this workshop was ‘Capacity development of the Drop-in-Centre Managers in Bangladesh’.

DICs are considered as central to the implementation of targeted interventions for MARPs. There are now approximately 300 DICs functioning for FSWs, PWID, MSM and hijras across the country. Scaling up of DICs has presented many challenges, one of them being the lack of adequate numbers of skilled personnel. It is crucial that the DIC managers have the right skills with the capacity to manage all the activities conducted at the DIC. Based on this necessity ICDDRB, Save the Children USA, UNAIDS along with the National AIDS STD Programme (NASP) decided to conduct a workshop on developing the capacity of DIC Managers.

Twenty two DIC managers attended the workshop. They were from different NGOs implementing HV/AIDS prevention programmes for the MARPs that are operated on behalf of the NASP, the Global Fund, and Family Health International. Among the participating DIC managers, 10 were implementing intervention programmes for MSM and hijra under the Rolling Continuation Channel (RCC) funding managed by ICDDR,B, another 10 managers were working for female sex workers (FSWs) and Injecting drug users (IDUs) population under RRC managed by the Save the Children-USA, and remaining 2 mangers work for Modhumita Program under the Family Health International (FHI) management.


 

The objectives of the training were to:

• Improve understanding of intervention and role of DIC
• Improve skills for different management and programmatic areas
• Enhance skills for problem solving

For details please contact Dr Md. Nazmul Alam