HIV/AIDS Strategic Policy Workshop

Senior Bank managers and representatives of community groups, national NGOs, and international networks who work with HIV/AIDS issues met on June 6 – 8, 2004 in Windsor, UK to deepen efforts to work together to fight the AIDS epidemic throughout the world.  

The “World Bank-Civil Society Strategic Policy Workshop on HIV/AIDS” was held on June 6 – 8 and brought together representatives of 30 CSOs from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Europe to discuss the Bank’s AIDS policies and programs worldwide.

The Bank team was led by Debrework Zewdie, Director of the Global HIV/AIDS Program, and included Keith Hansen, Manager of ACTafrica, Ann Duncan, head of the Bank’s London Office, Task Managers from various regions, and Civil Society engagement staff.  A representative from UNAIDS discussed donor coordination, and particularly the “threes ones” approach which calls for greater donor harmonization at the country-level.  

This Workshop was third in a series: the first in 2002 focused on trade, and the second in 2003 on rural livelihoods.  All three have been organized by the European Civil Society Team with Finnish Government funds. By being jointly planned with civil society, residential, independently facilitated, and adhering to Chatham House rules (in which no one is quoted by name), these workshops are valuable venues for promoting frank and constructive exchanges on thorny issues.  Summary of the discussion.

The agenda included presentations and plenary sessions on the Bank’s global HIV/AIDS policies and investments, and particularly the Multi-country AIDS Program (MAP) which has earmarked approximately half of its $1 billion budget to be implemented through civil society at the local level.  Other issues discussed included the problems of donor coordination and relations between macro-economic fiscal policies and AIDS funding.

Several prevailing trends emerged during these sessions, namely that:

• many AIDS/CSOs are not aware of the Bank’s leadership role in HIV/AIDS financing and that more needs to be done to strengthen communications towards civil society; 
• that weak government-civil society relations in some countries, and CSO capacity pose an obstacle to effective implementation of the MAP; and 
• the key role civil society has played in fighting the AIDS epidemic. 

Several participants also recognized the Bank’s increased commitment to HIV/AIDS as reflected by the ground-breaking MAP financing mechanism.   

During the second half of the workshop, participants divided into regional groups to formulate specific ideas to improve Bank-civil society AIDS collaboration at the country level.  Activities to be carried out at the country level include joint assessments on how the Bank’s AIDS programs are functioning in 2 countries per region, empowering civil society review boards to monitor AIDS initiatives and have a voice in decision-making at the country-level, and ways of improving World Bank - civil society communications around the MAP.  At the global level the Bank and CSOs will meet to discuss ways to improve the Bank’s communications efforts and to consider how international CSOs can provide technical assistance to regional, national, and local groups.   A steering committee of CSO representatives present at the meeting was established to move this agenda forward and to plan a follow-up meeting in January 2005. 

This was the first Bank – civil society global AIDS workshop of this nature and represented a unique opportunity to promote inter-institutional policy dialogue and strengthen operational collaboration at the local level.   Participants were unanimous in stating that it was not only valuable in clarifying mutual misconceptions, but  also practical in its outcome.

Summaries of the workshop in other languages:  French  Spanish

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