developing models of hiv prevention advocacy for whom and how – partnerships in prevention jim...
TRANSCRIPT
Developing Models of HIV Prevention Advocacy
For Whom and How – Partnerships in Prevention
Jim Pickett, IRMA & AIDS Foundation of ChicagoMicrobicides 2010 - Pittsburgh May 23, 2010
The recipe for success IRMA as a
“model”
Here we go
Background
• Long history of treatment advocacy• To date - prevention advocacy has focused on:– Male and female condoms– VCT– Clean needles– Behaviour change– MTCT– Male circumcision
• Advocacy around NPT is in its adolescence
Method to the madness
• Informal e-mail and telephone interviews with NPT advocacy leaders– Successes– Challenges– What do you do best?– How might another group incorporate your best?– What is the thing you need to work on?– If I could do it all over again, ____________________
Who did I talk to?
• Manju Chatani – AMAG [African Microbicides Advocacy Group]
• Anna Forbes – formerly GCM [Global Campaign for Microbicides]
• Morenike Ukpong – NHVMAS [New HIV Vaccine and Microbicide Advocacy Society]
• Mitchell Warren – AVAC [AVAC - Global Advocacy for HIV Prevention]
Pearls of wisdom
Themes
Passion
Purpose
Strategy
CreativityVision
Strength
Mentor
Don’t fall in love with “your” technology
The competition is the virus, not other technologies.
The goal is to prevent new
infections and end the epidemic.
Be passionate
Advocacy without passion is
just special-interest politicking.
Advocates are born with a fire in the belly.
- Mitchell Warren
Fill a gap
There was a gap identified for
African leadership in advocacy and a
need for a platform to mobilize
African advocates and interested orgs. We
started AMAG with the goal to link community
advocates, but at
the launch mtg, half the room was filled
with African researchers who wanted to take
part.
- Manju Chatani
Have a mission
In 1998, when GCM was founded, no woman-initiated HIV prevention tools existed with the exception of the female condom … There was virtually no awareness among scientists, policy-makers, the general public or even among HIV/AIDS advocates of the need ... We formed GCM to create… demand for woman-initiated HIV prevention tools, to raise public funding… inspire the scientific community to take on the research challenges, and build understanding among policy makers….
- Anna Forbes
Facilitate, collaborate
We have done much to facilitate relationships and partnerships between African advocates and researchers… - Manju Chatani
Do your work in coalition, in collaboration, with unusual suspects. - Mitchell Warren
Create partnershipsI personally crave to see more empowering collaborations with
other organisations in the field. I desire this and wish to see such successful models -
where the partners all bring things to the table
as equals.
- Morenike Ukpong
Herd the cats
We chose to form an inclusive movement by engaging women's health advocates, gay men's health advocates, HIV/AIDS
activists, and international development organizations through their own specific
interest in microbicides.
- Anna Forbes
Halfway home
Great advocacy models
understand how they
integrate into the larger
discourse.
communities to scientists and back.
-
- Mitchell Warren
We connect the dots on a wide range of disparate issues,
and translate them to various audiences,
Connect the dots
It’s not just the money, honey
Prevention research has often been boiled down to "we need more money" - but lots of things are not about just money . We need to be more sophisticated and move from cheerleading advocacy to more strategic, more critical thinking, from clinical trial results to public health impacts, to evidence-based analysis.
- Mitchell Warren
But… where IS the money honey?
Funding has been the primary challenge. It
has stunted our growth and our
capacity to do the work we have envisioned and endorsed by our
constituents to do. – Manju Chatani
Getting funding support is EXTREMELY difficult and so we have to be EXTREMELY
imaginative. – Morenike Ukpong
GCM's approach has been to "lead
from behind" and to avert conflict and
competition by anticipating potential
areas of tension and addressing them
proactively... The creation of IRMA, of
course, is our most successful example
of this approach.
- Anna Forbes
Strategic mentoring
We currently are developing a 18 months mentorship plan with a Spanish organisation who is great with government advocacy. They will learn about community mobilisation including media engagement from NHVMAS – a great model for learning. NHVMAS learned a lot from GCM in its early years
- Morenike Ukpong
Challenges
Managing expectations of local and national NGOs who we have gotten excited by HIV prevention research,
especially microbicides – only to have them fatigued by the series of products in trials that did not show promise.
Supporting NGOs and community reps in keeping prevention research advocacy alongside the more pressing issues around
HIV stigma, treatment and care issues.
Keeping up to speed – and keeping advocates up to speed – on the rapidly changing science of prevention research.
- Manju Chatani
Is there really a recipe for success?
A pinch of this a splash of that
IRMA, b.2005
4 people, 3 agencies, 2 countries
Roll with it, make it up
• Communications– Listserv– Teleconferences– Website, blog, other
social networking– Reports
• Activities– Conferences
• M2006, AIDS 2006, etc
– Lubricant survey
Become a publisher
Play well with other acronyms
• Collaborations– AMAG, AMD, amfAR, AVAC,
CHAMP, GCM, GMHS, GNP+ MSMGF, MTN, NHVMAS, PC, UCLA, + dozens and dozens more advocacy groups, universities, research institutions
– IRMA ALC, IRMA Nigeria• Governance– TOR– Steering Committee
The forest for the trees
• Connection to broader issues– Lack of data on
heterosexual AI– Stigma, taboo– Homophobia,
criminalization– Gender inequities– Human rights, LGBT rights– Current HIV prevention and
NPT writ large
Special thanks to IRMA funders
• AIDS Foundation of Chicago• amfAR – The Foundation for AIDS Research• Broadway CARES /Equity Fights AIDS• Elton John AIDS Foundation
And that’s it
