To End the AIDS Pandemic, Let Communities Lead

Namibia can end the AIDS pandemic by 2030 by letting communities lead.

Communities of people living with HIV or at risk and those affected by HIV are the drivers of progress in the HIV response.

They connect people to public health services, build trust, innovate, monitor the implementation of policies and services and hold service providers accountable.

For example, in Namibia, the Tonata Network of people living with HIV focuses on ensuring that individuals and families are enrolled in care, remain in care and, if they are on treatment, take their medications correctly.

Tonata supports establishing HIV support groups and nurtures them, encouraging members to learn about positive living, adhere to their medication and participate in community projects to generate income.

In addition, support groups connect members to service providers, community and constituency leaders to whom they take their system-wide concerns.

So far, there are more than 15 000 members in 500 support groups.
In addition to house visits and community activities, Tonata integrated issues such as the response to the Covid-19 pandemic by sharing bulk text messages with Covid information in local languages to enhance prevention and social and behavioural change.

BARRIERS

Letting communities lead builds healthier and stronger societies. However, many communities face barriers to their leadership.

Community-led responses are under-recognised, under-resourced and, in some places, even under attack.

Globally, funding for communities has fallen by 11% in the last 10 years – from 31% in 2012 to 20% in 2022.

These funding shortages, policy and regulatory hurdles, capacity constraints, crackdowns on civil society and on the rights of marginalised communities obstruct the progress of HIV prevention, treatment and care services.

It is in everyone’s interest to fully fund community-led organisations and remove the many obstacles they face.

By enabling communities in their leadership, the promise to end AIDS can be realised.

This is why communities were put at the centre of World AIDS Day this year.

POTENTIAL

World AIDS Day on Friday saw a call to action to support communities and unleash their full potential. That means:

• The leadership role of communities needs to be core in all HIV plans and programmes and in their formulation, budgeting, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.

• Communities need to be fully and reliably funded to allow them to scale up their services and for workers to be properly remunerated.

• Barriers to community leadership need to be removed.

There must be an enabling regulatory and legal environment that allows communities space to operate and protects human rights for all, including in Africa where adolescent girls and young women, people who use drugs, sex workers, migrants and refugees, and other vulnerable populations are at high risk of acquiring HIV.

INCLUSION

On 26 October 2023, the Ministry of Health and Social Services launched the Namibia Social Contracting for Health Policy.

The policy aims to strengthen essential health services and enable the government to contract civil society organisations to provide essential health services in line with government priorities.

In addition, it promotes including community-led organisations in national frameworks and policies as service providers.

Worldwide last year, 630 000 people died of AIDS-related illnesses, 1,3 million people were newly infected with HIV, and 9,2 million people didn’t have access to lifesaving HIV treatment.  

In Namibia, 3 100 AIDS-related deaths and 5 600 new HIV infections were recorded in 2022.

The major new UNAIDS report, ‘Let Communities Lead’, sets out facts and figures that demonstrate how communities drive progress worldwide.

Supporting communities in their leadership is not only the right thing to do, it is essential for advancing public health.

• David Chipanta, UNAIDS Namibia country director; you can read the full article online under Opinions at namibian.com.na