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Health Program Descriptions

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OverviewProgram Description

Scaling Up Palliative Care for People Living With HIV/AIDS
Implementer:               African Palliative Care Association (APCA)
Duration:                    October 2009 to September 2014
Total Estimated Cost: $7,943,405
 
In line with the overall goal of mitigating the impact of HIV/AIDS in the region, USAID’s regional program with the African Palliative Care Association (APCA) collaborates with country-based organizations to integrate its adult palliative care standards into existing health systems. APCA supported the establishment of “Centers of Excellence” in Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Zambia as well as activities to integrate palliative care into host government policy and guidelines. 
 
Human Resources Alliance for Africa (HRAA)
Implementer:              East Central and Southern Africa (ECSA) Health Community
Duration:                     April 2011 to April 2016
Total Estimated Cost: $50,000,000
 
The Human Resources Alliance for Africa (HRAA) is a follow-on project to the Southern Africa Human Capacity Development (SAHCD) award, implemented through an agreement with the East, Central and Southern African Health Community (ECSA). The first two countries to have bought into HRAA are Lesotho and Swaziland; Zimbabwe will start activities later in FY 2012. Through this program, USAID expects to make a significant contribution to the PEPFAR goal of producing, recruiting and retaining 140,000 new health workers by 2013.
 
Strengthening Clinical Services
Implementer:               Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) Lesotho
Duration:                     February 2010 to February 2015
Total Estimated Cost: $24,515,298
 
Strengthening Clinical Services (SCS) in Lesotho is a 5-year project that aims to ensure that 100% of health facilities offer comprehensive Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) services by the end of 2011, 100% of health facilities offer care and support (adults and children) and 90% of health facilities offer treatment initiation (adults and children) by end of 2013.
 
Enhancing Strategic Information
Implementers:             John Snow Inc; Institute of Health Measurement (IHM)
Duration:                     January 2008 to August 2015
Total Estimated Cost: TBD
 
Good strategic information (SI) is vital for accountability and program improvement. USAID supports SI activities in the region by providing technical assistance to its partners, USG country teams and their partners, and to other regional organizations on activities like data quality assessments (DQAs), performance management plans, evaluations and surveillance, and health information systems. 
 
Building Local Capacity for Delivery of HIV Services in Southern Africa
Implementer:              Management Sciences for Health (MSH)
Duration:                     August 2010 to August 2015
Total Estimated Cost: $36,746,361
 
Through an Agreement with Management Science for Health’s (MSH) Building Local Capacity (BLC) intervention, USAID is supporting the capacity of regional inter-government organizations, such as the Southern African Development Community’s (SADC) HIV/AIDS Unit, and civil society entities to plan and, ultimately, to lead responses to the HIV/AIDS epidemic at national and regional levels. The overall focus of the project is to: 1) Strengthen African regional institutions through the provision of high-quality technical assistance; 2) Build the capacity of national and regional systems to respond to the care and protection of vulnerable children and adolescents; 3) Strengthen regional and bi-lateral HIV prevention activities, with a specific focus on regional programming for migrant populations and affected communities; and 4) Improve the delivery of palliative care, particularly community-care, across the region.
 
Community Rapid and Effective Action to Combat HIV/AIDS (REACH Lesotho)
Implementer:              Pact Inc. (Lesotho)
Duration:                     January 2009 to September 2014
Total Estimated Cost: $12 million
 
The five-year program is designed to facilitate the efficient flow of grant funds and to deliver capacity building services to organizations contributing to the fight against HIV/AIDS in Lesotho. The local organizations being supported by Pact are those implementing key technical focus areas of HIV/AIDS prevention and OVC Care and support. In FY 2011, Pact aimed to reach 30,700 individuals with HIV prevention interventions and provided care and support to 14,000 orphans and vulnerable children.
 
Community Rapid and Effective Action to Combat HIV/AIDS (REACH Swaziland)
Implementer:              Pact Inc. (Swaziland)
Duration:                     March 2010 to March 2015
Total Estimated Cost: $17.5 million
 
Pact’s five-year program is designed to facilitate the efficient flow of grant funds and to deliver capacity building services to organizations contributing to the fight against HIV and AIDS in Swaziland. Pact is currently building the capacity of 13 local organizations. The PEPFAR focus areas that these partners address are prevention, adult treatment, care and support, OVC and gender. Pact also assists Swaziland’s AIDS Council (NERCHA), to improve its processes as a Global Fund recipient.
 
National Strategic Plan for Strengthening Neighborhood Care Points (Swaziland)
Implementer:              UNICEF
Duration:                     October 2009 to September 2012     
Total Estimated Cost: $1,928,994
 
The overall objective of this activity is to increase access of young vulnerable children in Swaziland to quality basic health and social services while supporting the national effort to strengthen neighborhood care points (NCPs) and building local capacity for monitoring these efforts. The four main components are: 1) Supporting implementation of basic health services; 2) Improving the quality of early childhood care and development (ECCD) and psychosocial support (PSS) services; 3) Strengthening the coordination and management of the NCP initiative nationally; and 4) Developing monitoring and evaluation capacity for the NCP initiative, as well as for children’s programming nationally.
 
Joint Program – UN Volunteer Medical Doctors (Lesotho)
Implementer:              UNDP
Duration:                     March 2009 to March 2012
Total Estimated Cost: $1,499,999
 
Lesotho is currently facing a major shortage of medical personnel. This certainly impacts service provision for HIV/AIDS and TB treatment. With support from USAID, this program is deploying qualified medical staff through the United Nations Volunteer (UNV) Program as an effective stop-gap measure in support of capacity development efforts in the Ministry of Health. Placements of qualified medical staff will also go beyond this temporary objective through qualified training and supervision by the UNV Doctors of the medical professionals currently in situ.
 
Eliminating Pediatric AIDS in Swaziland (EPAS)
Implementer:              Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric Aids Foundation (EGPAF)
Duration:                     January 2010 to September 2015
Total Estimated Cost: $11,968,250
 
This activity focuses on the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) of HIV infection in pregnant and post-partum women in Swaziland. EGPAF has been supporting PMTCT efforts in Swaziland since 2004 and was awarded a new 5 year USAID bilateral agreement ‘Eliminating Pediatric Aids in Swaziland’ (EPAS).
 
Combination Prevention Program (CPP)
Implementer:              Population Services International (PSI)
Duration:                     November 2010 to November 2014
Total Estimated Cost: $15,657,238
 
The goal of the Combination Prevention Program (CPP) is to implement effective and tested approaches to support a national, coordinated approach to combination prevention programs through three pillars of interventions: 1) Structural Pillar: Create an enabling policy and political environment in which leadership for HIV prevention efforts will ensure activities are successful; 2) Behavioral Pillar: Support the expansion and coordination of evidence-based interventions which reduce the risk of HIV infection and enhance protective behaviors in the general population; and 3) Biomedical Pillar: Support the establishment of medical male circumcision (MC) provision throughout the GKOS health system, including both public health facilities and facilities operated by an existing Swazi NGO, so that MC is brought back as a routine national health seeking behavior.
 
Knowledge for Health (K4Health)
Implementer:              Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health
Duration:                     February 2009 to June 2013
Total Estimated Cost: $650,000
 
USAID’s ongoing Knowledge for Health (K4Health) project with Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health has supported a number of activities in collaboration with regional and national partners to strengthen knowledge sharing and communication for HIV prevention in southern Africa. K4Health developed and launched SHARE, a web-based communication and resource hub for diverse regional audiences to share and collaborate on HIV/AIDS. In Swaziland and Lesotho, K4Health supported the development of web-based HIV/AIDS information kiosks. Further planning for 2013 includes the development of eLearning courses for regional audiences, the strengthening of existing in-country information kiosks, the provision of regional eToolkit workshops, and the training of in-country experts to host discussions and share best practices on priority topics.
 
Accelerated Saturation Initiative (ASI)
Implementer:              Futures Group
Duration:                     October 2010 to September 2011
Total Estimated Cost: $14,899,942

The goal of the Accelerated Saturation Initiative (ASI), Soka Uncobe, is to reduce HIV incidence in the general Swazi population by rapidly expanding voluntary medical male circumcision (MC) services to adolescents and adult males aged 15 to 49. Three intermediate objectives of the project are: 1) Increase the demand for MC; 2) Increase access to and national coverage of high quality MC services; and 3) Strengthen national level capacity and continue to build political will to lead and manage an accelerated scale up MC.