Programme News

NEPHAK Receives Human Rights Award on HIV Treatment

Inviolata Mbwavi, former NEPHAK CEO receives Award from Ms Manaan Muma of UNDP Kenya as current NEPHAK CEO, Nelson Otwoma looks on

At the end of the First National Symposium on HIV, Law and Human Rights held 30-31October, 2012 in Nairobi, the National Empowerment Network of people living with HIV/AIDS in Kenya (NEPHAK) was honored for its tireless work on promoting the human right of people living with HIV to access effective antiretroviral treatment (ART). Ms. Muma Manaan, the UNDP representative in Kenya, presented the award during a Gala Night, organized to close the Symposium, presided over by Hon. Eugene Wamalwa, MP, Minister for Constitutional Affairs.

The award, and the context in which NEPHAK received it, marks several significant milestones for the PLHIV organisation.

Five years ago, NEPHAK was little more than the national coordinating body for PLHIV support groups. It had few contacts in government or UN agencies and was in dire financial straights.

However, NEPHAK had just joined the HIV Leadership through Accountability (LTA) Programme, funded by a UKAID grant dedicated to helping communities in resource-constrained settings demand better governance. The 5-year LTA programme has aimed to develop the capacity of national PLHIV networks to perform and manage research projects to determine the needs of PLHIV in their countries, and to identify barriers to universal access to HIV prevention, treatment care and support. The programme provided more technical support than funding, and yet, participating in the rigorous programme developed and demonstrated the capacity and the potential of the network as a partner in the national HIV/AIDS response.

Subsequently, the organisation has formed partnerships with multi and bilateral funders, such as the UN agencies and USAID supported capacity development initiatives, international HIV implementers such as Management Sciences for Health and the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, as well as partners in the national AIDS response, the ministry of health and within parliament.

The award was presented to NEPHAK in recognition of the role it played in advocacy for the provision of free ARVs in public health facilities.

And this work is not over. In the Kenya PLHIV Manifesto, NEPHAK has demanded that the scale up of ART continue until universal access is reached — so that all PLHIV in Kenya who need it can access to treatment for their own health first and to also help protect their loved ones from onward transmission. NEPHAK is also demanding increased access to a wider number of generic antiretrovirals, and is participating in calls for more drug makers to join the medicines patent pool, to make newer and safer antiretrovirals and TB drugs available at low cost in the more resource poor parts of the world.  

NEP+ and partners discuss how to implement recommendation of LTA Research

People living with HIV (PLHIV) and dignitaries came together at the Ethiopia Civil Society Campaigning and Lobbying  (CAL) Workshop, held in Addis Ababa at Intercontinental Hotel on the 23 and 24 October 2012, to call for more meaningful involvement of Ethiopian PLHIV/AIDS (MIPA) with policy making bodies, in government programmes and service delivery, among other things.

“Without the involvement of PLHIV, the national response of HIV can’t be realized,” Dr Warren Nammara, Country Director of UNAIDS in Ethiopia. The United Nation has already adopted the MIPA principle; implement it in all UN agencies involved HIV, and promote it in every country’s HIV response. in national HIV response. “Inclusion of PLHIVs in every programme means better understanding of HIV/AIDS in those programmes, and increases the likelihood of the HIV/AIDS response being successful. When we design programmes or research, we must recognise the essential contribution that PLHIV can make to achieve ‘the zeros’[1].”

PLHIV Leaders Launch the Kenya People Living with HIV Manifesto

The Chief Guest Ms. Dorothy Odhiambo

NEPHAK Launches the Kenya People Living with HIV Manifesto

On 18 October, at a breakfast for the media in Nairobi, the National Network of Networks of People Living with HIV (PLHIV) in Kenya (NEPHAK), together with representatives of its member organisations, launched the ‘Kenya People Living with HIV Manifesto' — a platform for re-thinking the national response to HIV and AIDS in Kenya with PLHIV at the centre.

The manifesto, drafted during Kenya’s 4^th National Leadership Conference of PLHIV just weeks earlier, was developed to help secure the active and meaningful engagement of PLHIV in national development, particularly in leadership and good governance — and to make certain that the human rights and essential needs of PLHIV are considered by politicians in light of Kenya’s upcoming elections. It provides a comprehensive framework for negotiation with the government and other actors in regard to policy and practice for responding to HIV and AIDS at national and local levels.

“This Manifesto is a huge milestone as we rethink our path towards turning the tide towards an AIDS-free Kenya, for it documents voices of various stakeholders, and lays down clear plans and means to achieve them through combination HIV prevention,” said Dorothy Onyango, at launch of the manifesto. Onyango is also the Executive Director of Women Fighting AIDS in Kenya (WOFAK), a woman leader living with HIV — and, an aspiring parliamentary candidate in the coming March 2013 national elections.

But the “manifesto is not just aimed at the government and other actors in position of authority. It urges all Kenyans and their friends/partners to identify with the demands of PLHIV and affected communities,” according to the document.

Background

The Kenya PLHIV Manifesto arises out of a few critical developments:

1) In 2009, NEPHAK joined the Leadership through Accountability Programme, an initiative, funded by UKAID, to develop capacity among communities, in particular national networks of PLHIV, to demand better governance. A key part of the programme was developing the capacity to conduct research to document the experiences and needs of PLHIV in the country. One of the studies performed assessed the degree to which PLHIV were meaningfully involved in the decisions that affected their lives — and their engagement in Kenyan policy-making and implementation was found wanting.

“It’s only through meaningful involvement of PLHIV in national development processes that the country will achieve the global strategy of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS related deaths,” NEPHAK’s press release on the manifesto declared.

This factor was direct affected by:

2) Kenya’s 2010 constitution, with its dramatic re-organization of political structures that directly impact the national response to HIV and AIDS.

And finally, the strategic response to HIV has been profoundly affected by:

3) New scientific evidence confirming that antiretroviral HIV treatment is one of the most powerful and cost-effective tools for HIV prevention.

A tool in the election
NEPHAK also means to use the Manifesto to secure the commitment of key presidential aspirants and key political party leaders to take an active role in the AIDS response. PLHIV leaders want key politicians to factor in the issues of HIV and AIDS into their political party manifestos and campaign agenda. This will ensure that the future government to play a more active role in the response to HIV and AIDS.

“We want political parties to open their doors to people openly living with HIV to also contest seats as candidates. This is one sure way to achieve zero stigma and discrimination that Kenya so much needs”, Dorothy added.

NEPHAK, with support of partners is establishing a National Red Ribbon Award for Political Party and Presidential Candidate who will best articulate HIV and AIDS issues in their manifesto and campaigns respectively. The Manifesto shall be the framework upon which the performance of political parties and politicians in the HIV and AIDS response shall be measured. NEPHAK and partners shall also monitor and track the speeches and communications of key party leaders and key presidential aspirants to establish to what extent they are articulating health and HIV/AIDS issues. We have also started reviewing political party manifestos and will soon be disseminating our findings on where parties and candidates stand when it comes to HIV and AIDS. More importantly, NEPHAK shall continue to monitor the performance of the next government in as far as the response to HIV and AIDS is concerned even after the elections.

“We urge 2013 Presidential hopefuls to articulate their position on how they will respond to HIV and AIDS and we shall be monitoring and tracking the campaigns and speeches throughout the election period,” said Mr. Nelson Otwoma, NEPHAK National Coordinator and principle architect of the Manifesto. The National Red Ribbon Award shall be presented to a political party and presidential candidate who best articulates HIV and AIDS issues in their political and electoral agenda”,added Mr. Otwoma.

NEPHAK plans to use the Manifesto as a tool for tracking the performance of parties and candidates and each party and politician shall get feedback on NEPHAK assessment. NEPHAK leaders at national and county levels have also been sensitized on the ideals of the manifesto and shall be engaging candidates in political rallies and other forums. Already NEPHAK members are engaging politicians in their constituencies and counties. At national level, NEPHAK is also reaching out to key political parties to help them mainstream HIV and AIDS in their manifesto. Political party heads and presidential candidates are invited to sign into the Kenya people living with HIV Manifesto. At County and Constituency levels, we shall also be reaching out to candidates who want to be governors, senators and members of parliament.

"We believe that by fulfilling national AIDS treatment targets of one million people on treatment by 2015 and continuing that accelerated pace of enrollment, Kenya can simultaneously begin to end AIDS and TB epidemics. Also, the next Kenyan government must increase domestic funding to HIV and AIDS so as to ensure predictable and sustainable resources to achieve zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and Zero AIDS and TB related Deaths," states NEPHAK's press release.

The full manifesto can be downloaded here: healthgap.org/s/The-Kenya-PLHIV-Manifesto-FINAL.pdf

NEPHWAN forms strategic partnerships to scale up campaign for anti-stigma and discrimination legislation

A two-day stakeholders meeting, scheduled as part of the LTA programme activities, was fortuitously timed to scale up a more dynamic advocacy campaign in relation to the anti-discrimination bill in Nigeria.

The Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS in Nigeria (NEPWHAN) uses such advocacy opportuniteis to build better partnerships and to share LTA research findings with civil society and then discuss how best to use them for lobbying and campaigning — in this case, advocacy efforts at achieving the passage of the anti-discrimination bill and proper implementation of the Greater Involvement of People Living with HIV (GIPA) principle. The stakeholders were drawn from a range of civil society organizations, PLHIV networks, faith organistaions, the Nigerian Labour Congress, Federal Ministry of Justice, National Human Rights Commission and the press.

NACOPHA uses HIV Stigma Index findings to lobby Members of Parliament

During September of 2012, NACOPHA was involved in several meetings where findings from the HIV Stigma Index — an HIV Leadership through Accountability (LTA) Programme research survey identifying how people living with HIV experience HIV stigma and discrimination in a local context — were used to campaign for improved national coordination for PLHIV care and support, increased awareness, and the implementation of the national stigma and discrimination strategy at the local level — major goals agreed to in Tanzania’s Campaign, Advocacy and Lobbying plan.

In the first meeting, help on 10^th September 2012, NACOPHA leveraged the Stigma Index research findings to lobby the HIV/AIDS Advisory Committee of the Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU). The IPU wanted to better understand challenges faced by PLHIV in general.