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| NACO scraps nearly 40% of its targeted interventions |
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NACO says it is streamlining interventions and weeding out ineffective organisations in order to stick to the objectives of the new AIDS policy which includes expanding the focus to include truckers and migrant workers |
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India’s National AIDS Control Society (NACO) has scrapped almost 450 of its programmes and sacked 350 non-governmental organisations running them as part of a massive clean-up drive. The organisation’s move to disassociate itself from its non-performing partners in the fight against the disease was prompted by the findings of a recent internal evaluation of NACO’s targeted interventions (TIs). Experts who have expressed concern over the involvement of sub-standard organisations in NACO’s programmes have hailed the organisation’s moves at improving quality control. Another survey is scheduled to be held in March, as the organisation seeks to further improve its functioning. “We have discontinued almost 450 TIs. We have almost 1,200 interventions and these have been brought down to around 756,” said Sujata Rao, Director-General, NACO. These NGOs either had composite programmes that involved street children, were bogus, or lacked the relevant experience, Rao said. The discontinued programmes constitute almost 37% of NACO’s programmes -- targeted specifically at high-risk groups for HIV/AIDS such as prostitutes, drug users and men who have sex with men -- which are now supervised by 800 non-profit organisations. Under the prevailing structure, NACO operates through 38 state AIDS control societies that assess and approve project proposals from NGOs that have been vetted by its technical advisory committees. NACO funds these organisations, which, in turn, oversee the management of the NGOs. “It is indeed a concern that the NGOs working in the prevention area were not effective enough,” says Denis Broun, country coordinator for UNAIDS. Broun pointed out that while the Indian government had a “good measurement of inputs” going into the HIV/AIDS programme, there was “a need for good measurement of output as well” that could tally efforts with outcomes, as considerable resources were being spent on the initiative. Phase III of the National AIDS Control Programme (NACP) has planned for an expenditure of Rs 11,585 crore on AIDS awareness initiatives between 2007 and 2011. This allocation is five times the current outlay (under the NACP’s second phase). With an adult prevalence rate (cases per 100,000 population) of 0.36%, India has the third highest number of HIV cases, at around 2.47 million. Only South Africa and Nigeria have more cases. There are 118 districts in India with more than 1% HIV prevalence (considered high-prevalence areas), according to the latest ‘Annual Sentinel Surveillance Survey Country Report 2006’; 81 districts have a prevalence rate of more than 5%. The report also notes that although HIV prevalence has decreased among injecting drug users in Manipur, one of the country’s high-prevalence states, the prevalence rates in all surveillance sites remain a high 10%. Moreover, rates among female commercial sex workers in two other northeastern states -- Nagaland and Mizoram -- are on the rise. Source: www.livemint.com, January 30, 2008
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