Program of Prevention of HIV/AIDS in Russia

About the project

Implementation of the Program to improve access of vulnerable groups to prevention, treatment and care of HIV/AIDS in Russia began 01.06.2015, with support from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The purpose of the Program is to assist in building and strengthening national legal, methodological and financial basis for providing the sustainability and expansion of coverage of key groups with services in HIV prevention, treatment, care and support for HIV/AIDS.

This objective will be realized through the following tasks:

• Maintaining the prevalence of hiv infection in selected regions among the most vulnerable social groups – injecting drug users (idus) and their sexual partners, men and women who provide sexual services for a fee (sws), men who have sex with men (msm).
• Strengthening advocacy for the removal of legal barriers to access to treatment and to the implementation of evidence-based prevention programs in the national strategy to combat the spread of hiv and in the existing system of health care and social protection to ensure their future sustainability.
• Strengthening community systems of key groups – idus, sws, msm, people living with hiv to protect their rights, as well as to influence the service and advocacy events on the prevention of hiv among vulnerable groups.

Key activities:

• Work of the regional projects on HIV prevention among vulnerable groups – distribution of information on the risk of contracting HIV, providing means of protection, help in providing medical and social services.
• Addressing legal barriers to access to health services – social mobilization of communities; legal aid and improvement of legal literacy; monitoring quality of services on HIV prevention at the community level; participation in the discussion and preparation of a plan for implementing the National Strategy on HIV/AIDS.
• Strengthening systems of communities – strengthening of organizational and institutional capacity of groups, organizations and networks of communities; social mobilization; networking within communities; cooperation and coordination; patient control.

Terms of the Program – July 01, 2015 – December 31, 2017.

Budget of the Program – 10,986,691 USD.

Taking into account the results of the National Dialogue from May 14, 2014, as well as the results of the open voting, Coordination Committee nominates the Foundation “Open Health Institute” (OHI) as the Principal Recipient of the grant to support the implementation of the declared program – a non-profit non-governmental organization established in January 2003 for distribution of advanced experience in the field of public health of the population and implementation of science-based technologies for the prevention of diseases in Russia.

The project will be implemented by the Principal Recipient – OHI – under the supervision of the Coordination Committee and with the assistance of a network of NGOs in the regions of its’ implementation.

The Coordination Committee (CC) was formed for the purposes of this program during the National Dialogue in May 2014. Coordination Committee brings together representatives of Russian non-governmental organizations, communities of key groups – IDUs, SWs, MSM and people living with HIV, –international organizations.

In addition to participating in the work of the CC and its oversight functions, key groups – IDUs, SWs, MSM and people living with HIV – will be directly involved in the implementation of the program, namely in activities to strengthen communities’ systems, in expert support of advocacy work, as well as in the provision of technical support to the activities and events.

SYMONA: Monitoring and Evaluation System

SYMONA is a monitoring and evaluation system, created by the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Unit of the Central Public Health Research Institute (CPHRI) of Federal Agency for Health and Social Development and Social Development in collaboration with the Open Health Institute.

SYMONA is a website with limited access, which allows to:
1. Collect and store in a centralized manner complete descriptions of key and additional project indicators, planned and achieved values of these indicators, information on activities conducted in the regions as well as related project materials.
2. Analyze all data needed for M&E.
3. Generate reports on required indicators according to accepted standards and provide program reports to meet M&E needs of the Open Health Institute as the Principal Recipient of the prevention of HIV/AIDS programs.
4. Bring together all elements of the M&E system.
5. Provide on-line access to updated project information.

The website has an open-access section providing information about the implementation of the program of Prevention of HIV/AIDS as well as an overview of operational components and possibilities of SYMONA.