Nigeria

HIV/AIDS

The HIV/AIDS Programme is providing support to national efforts aimed at reducing the spread of HIV and AIDS, manage the epidemic and mitigate its impact. It consists of 3 major areas of intervention namely, HIV and AIDS and Human Development, Governance of AIDS responses; Gender and Human Rights related to HIV and AIDS; and Advocacy and communications strategies to address the underlining causes of the epidemic.

The following areas form the core of UNDP’s HIV/AIDS interventions:

HIV/AIDS and Human Development

To promote a multi-sectoral response to the challenge of HIV and AIDS in Nigeria UNDP Nigeria provide tremendous support to national and States institutions for mainstreaming HIV and AIDS. This is done at 2 levels:

• Mainstreaming HIV and AIDS into sectoral plans and budgets of line ministries and parastatals: UNDP in Nigeria is working, with the National Agency for the Control of AIDS, to support Line Ministries and Parastatals at Federal and States level to mainstream HIV and AIDS into their sectoral plans and budgets. This is done through capacity building and training of members of critical masses set up within each line ministry and direct technical support and backstopping. UNDP has also provided support to the popularization of work place policies .
• Mainstreaming HIV and AIDS into MDG based national development and poverty reduction strategies: UNDP is also working together with the National Planning Commission to mainstream HIV and AIDS into national Poverty reduction strategy documents meaning the National Economic Empowerment Strategies (NEEDS) and their equivalent at State level – State Economic Empowerment Strategy (SEEDS). Nigeria is among the countries being supported globally by the Joint UNDP/World Bank and UNAIDS Secretariat programme. The NEEDS2 has HIV and AIDS fully mainstreamed and more than five will be supported for HIV and AIDS integration into MDGs based planning for the duration of the 6th Country Programme.

UNDP is also providing support to impact assessments in several highly affected states and communities to help improve the understanding of the way in which HIV and AIDS is affecting States, so as to advocate for placing HIV/AIDS at the centre of national development planning and budgeting, promote a broad-based response to the epidemic that rallies partners well beyond the public health sector, build capacity of local governments and community organizations in support of a decentralized response, and promote the human rights of people living with HIV/AIDS.

Governance of AIDS Responses
UNDP Nigeria has been working within the UN Joint Response on HIV/AIDS designed to strengthen national and sub-national capacities to develop and implement National HIV/AIDS Strategy framework and Priority Action Plan. UNDP is providing support for the mid-term review of the National HIV/AIDS strategic plan 2005-2009, the development and costing of the National Action Priority Plan, both of them serving as the one framework supporting the AIDS response in Nigeria. In 14 UNDP supported States, development of State Strategic Action plans is completed. Support is provided for the development of Universal Access targets and priority action plans that will facilitate the implementation of States Strategic Frameworks.
UNDP supports organizations of People Living with AIDS (PLWAs) in reinforcing their technical and organizations capacities to play a role in the national response. Together with the National Action Committee on AIDS, UNDP has advocated and supported the creation of national networks of people, youth, women and religious leaders living with HIV and for the inclusion of PLWAs in Federal Government’s poverty reduction initiatives.
UNDP Nigeria is an active participant in coordinating activities through the UN Theme Group (UNTG) and the Joint UN Team on HIV and AIDS (JUNTA). As a part of the UN reform of working as one UN, UNDP and several UN agencies develop and coordinate the implementation of a joint UN plan on HIV and AIDS for 2007 and 2008. Areas identified under this joint UN plan are based on the National Action Priority Plan developed by NACA with the support of UNDP. As well UNDP work in joint collaboration with UNIFEM to ensure gender aspects were taken into consideration in UNDP HIV and AIDS activities.

HIV and AIDS, Gender and Human Rights
Gender mainstreaming in HIV and AIDS activities is critical. In addition to collaboration with UNIFEM, UNDP ensure that all capacity building and training activities emphasize on gender issues. States and CSOs actors were brought together in 2007 for training on gender mainstreaming into HIV and AIDS interventions. The HIV and AIDS National Strategic Framework fully take into account gender issues and propose tangible strategies to address.
While promoting at all level for a greater and meaningful involvement of UNDP, UNDP is supporting Network of People and Women living with HIV (NEPWHAN and ASHWAN) for the development and implementation of their strategic framework.
UNDP Nigeria is undertaking a review of current legislations to analyze the extent to which, HIV and AIDS is reflected in Nigerian Laws and Legislations (Federal and selected States) and to understand the gaps, Recommendations from this review will use to advocate for changes in legislations that will benefit to people living with and affected by HIV and AIDS.

Advocacy and communications strategies to address the underlining causes of the epidemic
Developing Leadership Capacity to Address HIV/AIDS –UNDP is engaged in building and institutionalizing leadership capacity at national and state levels and promoting the dissemination of best practices to ensure effective response to HIV and AIDS in Nigeria. UNDP has been a strong advocate at national level for this institutionalization of Leadership in universities curriculum in Nigeria. UNDP succeeded in developing a Leadership curriculum and in involving 5 universities nationwide for leadership courses.
UNDP interventions in Leadership have produced many breakthrough initiatives that provide additional perspectives on fighting the epidemic. These breakthrough initiatives have been documented.
At community level, UNDP is using the Community Capacity Enhancement programme to support discussions at community level on HIV and AIDS issues and finding they own solutions to address them. The community Capacity Enhancement focuses on empowering communities by adopting an overarching strategy to help them implement and scale up effective response to HIV/AIDS challenge in a systematic and holistic way using existing structures to address social political and economic factors that fuel the epidemic. UNDP has conducted several orientations and trainings to build capacity of national and States stakeholders and facilitators in this regards. The training of trainers is conducted at the national level followed by step down training at State and community level. The CCE methodology has also been used to tackle Avian Influenza epidemic in Nigeria.

Focus area - Global Fund Partnership:
UNDP has been providing Technical, institutional and financial support to the CCM for the Global Fund grant implementation to ensure effective development of proposals and effective implementation of grants. A capacity needs assessment of all institutions involved in GF implementation (CCM, PRs, SRs and IAs) was aupported with the objective to identify issues and bottlenecks hampering implementation of grants. 
A costed capacity building plan was developed and resources is being mobilized

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