An Action Guide for Gender Equality in National HIV Plans: Catalyzing Change through Evidence-Based Advocacy

From 2009 to 2011, ICRW collaborated with government, civil society, and donor organizations in Uganda and Cambodia to do the following:
• Identify strengths and gaps in how these two countries’ national strategies, policies and action plans address gender inequality as a social driver of HIV;
• Collaborate with government, civil society, and donor stakeholders to generate and advocate for practical solutions to improve gender-responsiveness of national HIV strategies, policies, and action plans; and
• Develop and disseminate tools so this process can be replicated in other countries.

The project also mobilized a group of advocates in both countries who will continue the work started through this project to ensure the national HIV response accounts for gender norms that are driving the epidemic. In this document the authors describe how the project unfolded in each country and share lessons learned that can inform others who would like to undertake similar efforts. They describe how to identify partners and collaborators, conduct a gender assessment of the current HIV policy and program environment, use the assessment findings to create recommendations, create communications and advocacy plans to feed the recommendations into policy formation, and plan for sustained national gender and HIV efforts.

The document also offers some tools to enable others to replicate a similar process in other countries.

Source: International Center for Research on Women (ICRW)

Date of Publication: March 25, 2019