Multi-Sectoral Partnerships
We build and sustain partnerships to support coordinated and comprehensive responses to HIV.
No single sector can respond effectively to HIV. Multi-sectoral partnerships at all levels, from global to local, are essential in bringing together the necessary expertise, skills, leverage and coordination needed to respond effectively to HIV. Governments, public and private sector agencies (such as health, development and scientific communities), donors and a diverse and vibrant civil society, including NGOs and people living with and affected by HIV, are essential to a comprehensive and coordinated approach. As we work to scale up our responses, partnerships improve programming by building on the existing infrastructure and expertise of different sectors, enabling integration of HIV responses within broader development, health, humanitarian and human rights work, and supporting a comprehensive response in addressing the causes of vulnerability to HIV and its consequences. We also need to foster partnerships with governments, policy-makers, the media, and public and private sector agencies, in order to promote an enabling environment for effective responses to HIV.
We need to foster strategic partnerships that support coordinated and comprehensive programming by:
- establishing mechanisms for assessing and reaching consensus about major unmet need in a given context, including mapping of available programmes and identifying gaps in types of programmes and services or gaps in meeting the needs of particular communities vulnerable to HIV
- identifying those organisations or agencies best placed to address unmet need within a given context
- identifying and addressing organisational and competitive obstacles to effective cooperation
- undertaking joint programming or scaling up initiatives in partnership, to enable pooling of resources and expertise and build on existing relationships of trust between different organisations and within communities
- identifying opportunities and acting on or advocating for mainstreaming HIV programming within appropriate settings, such as within the education system, poverty reduction initiatives and disaster relief programmes
- ensuring integration of HIV with other related health initiatives, such as sexual and reproductive health, malaria and tuberculosis programmes, and fostering cross-fertilisation of organisational methods and approaches by sharing lessons learned about successful programming and what has proved effective in scaling up those programmes.