HASAB (HIV/AIDS and STD Alliance Bangladesh) has become the Alliance's latest linking organisation - rejoining the expanding global partnership after a gap of five years. HASAB was previously an Alliance linking organisation from 1994 until 2002.
HASAB works with vulnerable populations key to the epidemic in Bangladesh. This includes young people, men who have sex with men, transgenders, injecting drug users, commercial sex workers, internal migrants and people living with HIV. HASAB has also been working on mainstreaming HIV into wider development programmes and human rights issues.
HASAB has national coverage through its programmes, and aims to provide comprehensive services to its key population groups. In some areas it is successfully achieving this (in conjunction with other organsiations) but in many other areas it isn't.
"HASAB has local skills for programmes, but it now has more donors with differing requirements, and its structures haven't been built to deal with this complexity," says executive director Nazneen Akhter. "One key need for HASAB is help to consolidate and build our organisational and institutional systems and capacity, and to help HASAB work in a more strategic way. The Alliance can help HASAB to grow as a national NGO, and become more able to act independently."
"The Alliance has a global strategy and lots of experience. The international Alliance can give an organisation like HASAB the confidence to advocate on difficult issues. HASAB is still not that strong organisationally, but we do have considerable learning built up from our programming that we would like to document and share."
HASAB also sees that it can learn a lot from the pool of global experience the Alliance holds. "There are huge cross-learning experiences and opportunities. HASAB can contribute to this and also learn a lot from the diverse experience of Alliance members," says Nazneen.
Bangladesh is a low prevalence country with HIV still mainly confined among injecting drug users (IDUs). In the worst affected area, HIV prevalence among IDUs has hit 8.9%. Across the IDU population as a whole prevalence is 7% - well above the 5% level indicating a concentrated epidemic. The government and civil society have been proactive in responding to HIV since the start of the epidemic - and in 1996 they already had an HIV policy in place. Strong family values and strong religious values are also still in evidence in the country.
Although HASAB started as an Alliance linking organisation in 1994, in 2001, USAID switched its HASAB funding from the Alliance to Family Health International. In re-joining the Alliance HASAB has undergone an Alliance assessment and partnership process to look at its strengths and weaknesses. A framework agreement was signed in August, and HASAB is now looking to develop a new five to ten year plan during 2008. "It's a great opportunity and good timing to link this into the new Alliance strategic framework for 2008-10," says Nazneen.
"One of HASAB's greatest strengths is now being part of the Alliance. Knowledge is power! Not only will HASAB benefit, Bangladesh will benefit, and the Alliance and global AIDS response will also benefit and become stronger."
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
