Inter-Agency Task Team on Children and HIV and AIDS Progress report and Way Ahead

1. Inter-Agency Task Team on Children and HIV and AIDSProgress report and Way Ahead

2. Inter-Agency Task Team on Children and HIV and AIDS • Established by UNAIDS committee of co-sponsoring agencies in March 2001 • Comprises specialists from UN agencies, civil society and donors • Ensure effective implementation of global agenda for children and by HIV and AIDS as set out in Framework for Protection, Care and Support of Children living in a World with HIV and AIDS • Promotes co-ordination, harmonisation and accelerated action • Co-ordinate working groups on priority areas identified by Global Partners Forum • Works closely with other IATTs e.g. Prevention of HIV infection of mothers and their children and Education IATT • Co-ordinates closely with Joint Learning Initiative on Children and HIV/AIDS • Link closely with work of Regional Inter-Agency Task Teams (RIATTs)

3. Working Groups established following Global Partners Forum 2006 • Civil registration • Communities role in the response • Education • Monitoring and Evaluation • National Plans of Action • Social Protection • Food and nutrition (added later) • IATT steering committee

4. Targeting • The IATT steering committee commissioned a paper on targeting AIDS mitigation resources • The findings show that ‘broader targeting is called for and appropriate in high prevalence settings where the majority or in some cases all children are more vulnerable because of the direct and/or indirect effects of AIDS’

5. Strengthening civil registration to promote protection and services Chairs: Plan International and UNICEF • Commissioned research by the University of Pretoria including desk review across Africa, and case studies in Zambia and Uganda • Research suggests HIV and AIDS does not affect availability of birth registration systems • AIDS does affect accessibility to birth registration due to issues of physical and financial access • Birth registration and certificates can provide access to basic services and protection • Death certificates can protect children’s inheritance rights

6. Civil registration – way forward • Birth registration should be incorporated into all programming related to HIV • Greater advocacy needed for policy makers on benefits of civil registration for state and individuals • Need legal framework for free and universal birth registration and accurate death registration • More work needed to create demand from parents and children for birth registration • Greater focus needed on wills and inheritance issues and address tension between customary and statutory law

7. Strengthening communities role in the response Chair: USG Overall objective of WG To influence behaviours and practice of multi-lateral and bilateral agencies and donors, private foundations and NGOs to get resources to communities with large numbers of children affected by HIV and AIDS and to support and monitor their appropriate use Issues paper on The role of international donors in supporting community responses to vulnerable children in countries severely affected by HIV and AIDS Paper identified range of models for directing resources to vulnerable households Despite commitments to promotion of child rights approaches, children affected by HIV and AIDS are often excluded from the design, implementation and monitoring of interventions There are a number of key challenges in monitoring programming at a community level.

8. Supporting Communities – Way forward • Publication of issues paper and Executive summary • Facilitate a donor forum to develop donor principles for supporting and financing communities, agreed by donors • Develop accompanying dissemination and advocacy plan • Revive WG members’ involvement in UNAIDS’ resource tracking work.

9. Education Chair: UNESCO and UNICEF Key achievements: • UNICEF and World Bank co-publication “Integrating orphans and vulnerable children into education in Eastern and Southern Africa: A Sourcebook” case studies from Rwanda, Zambia, Tanzania, Swaziland, Uganda. • Examines wide range of formal and non-formal approaches to provide education to especially vulnerable children in communities heavily affected by HIV/AIDS. • Findings show that: 1) international duty bearers need to direct sufficient resources toward building capacity at community level to increase sustainability and efficiency; and, 2) the preventive and protective benefits of education are reduced where education delivered is of poor quality. • UNICEF is coordinating a five-country study on Schools as Centres of Care and Support which focuses on integrating essential services into schools to support quality education for children. • SADC working with the IATT on Education, UNESCO, UNICEF and MiET (Media in Education Trust) to scale up schools as centres of care and support in three southern African countries, Swaziland, Mozambique, and Zambia. • Preliminary findings from the above study suggest that emphasis must be placed on both access and quality education.

10. Education – way forward Trends emerging from the Sourcebook cases as well as findings from the schools as centres for care and support study make evident the interdependence between access to and quality of education. • While removing barriers to access to education is key to improving enrollment, concurrent emphasis needs to be placed on a comprehensive, holistic approach to quality education. Including a life skills curriculum content that is relevant to the lives of children affected by HIV/AIDS. This means that life skills and sex and reproductive health must be a core pillar of the curriculum, and the general syllabus is gender sensitive. • The entire school environment must be child friendly and provide essential services that ensure the preventive and protective functions of education. Schools must be free of gender based violence and abuse, stigma and discrimination of those affected by the pandemic. The protective environment also includes care and support for children living with HIV/AIDS.

11. Monitoring and Evaluation Chair: USG and UNICEF Activities: • Progress Report for Children Affected by HIV/AIDS – 2008 • Status: Finalized (included in GPF documentation) • Estimating numbers of vulnerable children • Status: Developed preliminary “vulnerability index” to be used for estimation models; Consultant contracted to test this approach for five selected countries using DHS data • Guidance Document for M&E of national response for OVC • Status: Draft currently under final review (included in GPF documentation) • Identifying measure of vulnerability for children • Status: Draftcurrently under final review (key results to be presented on day 2 of GPF)

12. M and E Working Group - Way Forward Need for • Better resourcing of M and E within NPAs • Better co-ordination between those tracking national progress and those implementing services and support – both gvmt and CSO • Indicate development needs to capture local contexts but also ensure global indicators of progress • Ensuring OVC monitoring and targeting is AIDS conscious but not AIDS exclusive.

13. National Plans of Action Chair: World Vision International and UNICEF • Studies of lessons with planning and implementing NPAs, and integrating OVC issues into national policies: desk review and case studies in Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Uganda, Zambia, India and Jamaica Findings • A costed multi-sectoral OVC NPA and political support has been critical in accelerating action for OVC in many countries • but process of development slow (3-7 years) and implementation at scale limited. • Integration of vulnerable children into national policies and PRSPs has made little difference in terms of domestic budget allocations • Integration into sectoral plans, particularly national AIDS strategies has brought clear benefits, especially external funds • Integration/linkages with social protection plans may be more effective in future. • Off budget allocations challenging long-term national ownership and need greater alignment • Strengthening budgetary process and capacities of ministries responsible important to ensure long-term benefits for children • Low prevalence countries OVC NPAs face problems competing with other policy priorities and difficult to generate domestic or external funds

14. NPAs way forward • Case for stand alone NPA or more integrated strategy for CABA depends on epidemiological, policy and institutional context • Need more simple and refined guidance which is regionally contextualised to review national responses to children affected by AIDS • Countries should identify simple practical policies for mitigating impact of AIDS and children and explore integration/harmonisation with sector plans (health, education, HIV and AIDS and social welfare) • Ensure that domestic budgets prioritise above plans for more sustainable response • Greater role of civil society in monitoring policy implementation and financial commitments • Broader efforts needed to strengthen social welfare, social protection and justice (in long term) • All aspects of M & E should be strengthened. • National responses need to give greater attention to tackling stigma and discrimination

15. Social Protection Chair: UNICEF & DFID 3 papers published on • cash transfers, • social protection for vulnerable children in a context of HIV and AIDS, moving towards a more integrated vision • institutional perspectives for scaling up

16. Social protection- way forward • Need for increase funding for government -led scale up of cash transfers as cost-effective and evidence-based approach to reach vulnerable children • Strengthen family support services, child protection and alternative care and combine with broader policy reforms to reduce social vulnerability • Strengthen gvmt ministries responsible for social welfare and linkages with civil society for accountable and effective programmes • More analysis needed • on longitudinal impact of cash transfer and • linkages with other essential support services e.g. ECD, legal support and social work to maximise impacts of social transfers • Evidence of appropriateness of different types of transfers in different contexts.

17. Food Security and Nutrition Chairs WFP and UNICEF • Ensuring food security and nutrition part of comprehensive social protection framework • Expert consultation held resulting in a consensus statement on key “knowns” on food security children and HIV. • Identified broad priority areas

18. Way Forward • Need for working group co-chairs (UNICEF and WFP) to agree on an overarching framework and priorities • Co-ordinate and share findings on the impact of high food prices on children and families affected by AIDs • Ensure responses to high food prices include those affected by HIV from policy to implementation level • Contribute and support the May 2009 Forum on global food crisis and HIV and AIDS in Africa.

19. Challenges for IATT • Pace of WG delivery variable - high turn over of membership affecting institutional memory and leadership • Need to further integrate recommendations from Joint Learning Initiative – to strengthen evidence base • More decentralised approach e.g. closer working with RIATTs • Need for stronger linkages with country led initiatives and sharing of evidence – including dissemination of existing recommendations and working papers.

20. Further information on IATT www.unicef.org/aids/index_iatt Thanks to all the IATT and RIATT’s on children and HIV/AIDS