GLOBUS: Global Efforts Against AIDS in Russia
Stimulating an effective national response to HIV/AIDS in the Russian Federation (2004 - 2009)

1. Background

In October 2003, the Board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GF) approved submitted proposal of a consortium of five non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on implementation of an HIV control project within the GF donation. An amount of the approved funding was USD 88 mln.

The consortium included three Russian NGOs - Open Health Institute (OHI), "FOCUS-MEDIA" Foundation and AIDS Infoshare; and two international NGOs - AIDS Foundation East-West (AFEW) and Population Services International (PSI).
Starting from 2004, the Consortium has been working together on implementation of an HIV control project within the GF donation. The project aimed at stimulating national response to HIV is now known as GLOBUS.
Based on the donation agreement the project implementation completed on August 31, 2009, and Open Health Institute commenced its official closure-out according to GF procedures.

However, in November 11, 2009 the Board of the Global Fund took an exceptional decision to extend the GLOBUS program term to December 31, 2011, and to continue emergency funding for life-saving prevention services as being implemented under the project prior August 2009. An amount of the approved additional funding is USD 24 mln. and the donation funds shall be used to continue the same activities implemented under the program prior to 31 August, 2009. The extended activities will be focused on providing HIV prevention and community strengthening among IDUs, prisoners, MSM, CSWs, migrants, street children and PLWH.

2. Objectives

The project aims at stimulating an effective national response to HIV/AIDS in the Russian Federation. Activities under the GLOBUS project focus on four main objectives:

Objective 1: Supporting sustainable prevention programs to increase awareness and reduce the transmission of HIV/AIDS among youth and the general population.

Activities within Objective 1: mass media campaigns, health education in secondary schools, development of voluntary counseling and testing, improvement of qualitative condoms availability in Russian.

Objective 2: Supporting sustainable prevention programs to reduce the transmission of HIV/AIDS among vulnerable groups.

Activities within Objective 2: support prevention efforts toward the groups most vulnerable to the HIV epidemic in Russia: injecting drug users (IDU), street children, prisoners, sex workers, and men who have sex with men.

Objective 3: Providing treatment, care, health promotion and social support to people living with HIV.

Objective 3 aims to develop medical and counseling services, including provision of ARV therapy; support to parents living with HIV after the birth of their children; develop solidarity with people living with HIV (PLWH).

Objective 4: Advocating improvement in the HIV/AIDS policy environment and building capacity to reduce the impact of HIV/AIDS on infected, affected and vulnerable people.

Activities within Objective 4: advocate improvements in national and regional HIV/AIDS policies to ensure an adequate national response to the epidemic, including legislative changes, a price reduction in ARV medication; improvement of the co-ordination and mobilization additional national and international resources.

Following the GF decision the extended GLOBUS activities will be focused on providing HIV prevention and community strengthening among IDUs, prisoners, MSM, CSWs, migrants, street children and PLWH, i.e. in 2010-2011 the NGO Consortium will continue implementation of all programs under Objective 2 and some under Objective 3. Extended activities will be carried out in ten Russian regions selected in 2004.

3. Project regions

Project activities are implemented in ten regions of the Russian Federation. In September 2004 an evaluation committee consisting of Consortium and independent experts selected ten regions to participate in the project. The selected regions are: Vologda region, Krasnoyarskiy kray, Nizhniy Novgorod region, Orenburg region, Pskov region, Republic of Buryatiya, Republic of Tatarstan, Saint-Petersburg, Tver region, Tomsk region.

The regions were selected based on a set of criteria, developed by Consortium and Russian Ministry of Health and Social Development. Among the criteria: prevalence and incidence rates of HIV/AIDS, co-operative spirit among regional authorities, existing measures to fight HIV taking by regional governmental and non-governmental organizations, existing of HIV prevention programs in the regions and sufficient co-funding. The final beneficiaries of the project are governmental organizations, NGOs, the most vulnerable population groups, PLWHA.

The project activities are based on a comprehensive inter-sectoral approach. Project is implemented by the Consortium members with close cooperation with regional partners and federal governmental and non-governmental organizations, including Russian Ministry of Health and Social Development and Ministry of Justice. Project activities are tailored to meet specific regional needs in accordance with HIV epidemic features.