HIV/AIDS
HIV and AIDS have challenged the international development and international health systems more profoundly than any other disease in history. The speed with which it emerged, the ways in which it is spread, the enormous complexity in regimes for prevention and treatment, and the devastating impact of the disease itself have forced the world to face reality and react in ways never before envisioned. To a very great extent, the world has responded. According to UNAIDS, the prevalence of HIV world-wide has stabilized, and the number of new infections has fallen. However, the number of people living with HIV remains high at an estimated 33.3 million, with 2.6 million people newly infected in 2009. The number of children infected with HIV through mother-to-child transmission was 370,000 in 2009, a 24% decrease from 2004, but prevention of mother-to-child transmission is being hindered by insufficient access to antenatel and postnatal services. Moreover, only 22% of AIDS spending is invested in HIV prevention in 106 low- and middle-income countries and only 34% of young men and women globally have comprehensive and correct knowledge about HIV. To overcome such barriers, organizations around the world need to expand their capacity to both broaden and strengthen access to critical HIV/AIDS prevention, care, and treatment services and to increase the efficiency of those services.
TRG’s Role in the Global Response
A significant share of our recent work has focused directly on providing institutional capacity building to assist US Government agencies, international organizations and non-government organizations achieve results under the global response to HIV/AIDS. We bring over 20 years of experience as a core implementing partner under large-scale internationally funded health projects where we have played a leadership role in developing, testing, applying, and disseminating innovative approaches and methodologies for institutional capacity building. Our extensive and direct experience working on HIV/AIDS-related projects are based at the community, regional, national, and international levels, including significant work supporting the efforts of the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (GFATM) in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia.
In 2007, the US Agency for International Development awarded TRG one of six Indefinite Quantity Contracts (IQCs) to provide on-demand capacity building support under the five-year AIDS Support and Technical Assistance Resources (AIDSTAR Sector II) Program. Click here for more information on the AIDSTAR Sector II IQC (AIDSTAR brochure, Adobe Acrobat file, 65kb).
Examples of our Global Experience
TeamSTAR Project (www.TeamSTARProject.org). In 2009, the Office of HIV/AIDS awarded a 5-year $17 million task order to TRG to support the global PEPFAR program. TRG manages and implements field-funded support activities, drawing upon a pool of 20 Organizational Development Specialists to provide expert facilitation, skills development training, strategic planning, team building and executive coaching services tailored to country specific priorities and team assessment findings. TeamSTAR also develops and disseminates customized performance tools relevant to the one U.S. Government integrated approach. Particular emphasis is placed on improving collaborative planning and decision-making processes that are integral to whole-of-government program initiatives. In the first year of the project, TRG provided assistance to 11 U.S. Government PEPFAR country teams.
Supporting PEPFAR Country-Level Implementing Teams. TRG has provided organizational development support for country-level U.S. Government agencies implementing PEPFAR-funded programs in Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Lesotho, South Sudan, the DRC and Namibia, as well as several USAID health and HIV/AIDS offices in Missions implementing PEPFAR programs. TRG also designed and facilitated the first PEPFAR Global Field Meeting in South Africa, which included U.S. ambassadors and country team representatives from 14 focus countries. In 2009, USAID/OHA awarded a contract to TRG to provide organizational development support to PEPFAR teams world-wide through both core- and field support-funded activities. TRG has supported teams in Namibia, Cote d'Ivoire, Uganda, Benin, South Sudan, the Caribbean, Cameroon, Mali, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Lesotho and Kazakhstan.
Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS Research Unit, South Africa. TRG is currently collaborating with the Reproductive Health & HIV Research Unit (RHRU) in South Africa in the continued implementation of activities borne from an organizational assessment conducted in 2006; some of these activities include facilitating a Strategic Planning Retreat and providing ongoing leadership training and coaching support for the next year. Having received a huge influx of funding from the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), RHRU needed to clarify the organization's objectives, vision, mission and structure in order to meet the challenges of rapid expansion. TRG designed and conducted an organizational assessment to gather input into the strategic alignment process. Then, in collaboration with RHRU senior leadership, analyzed the assessment data and conducted at a Strategic Retreat to guide the strategic realignment process. Since that time, TRG has been providing on-going organizational development support to: help offices and units of RHRU align themselves to the new strategic plan, leadership structure, and vision; help staff to clarify roles and responsibilities and decision-making processes and to adjust to issues involving the changing organizational structure; and identify and build the skills staff need to implement the new vision and attendant strategy.
Scaling Up for Most at Risk Populations: Organizational Performance (SUM II) Project, Indonesia. TRG leads a consortium on this 5-year $20 million task order that is providing the targeted assistance in organizational performance to strengthen the engagement of civil society organizations in the HIV response. The project also provides and monitors small grants to qualified civil society organizations to support the scale up of integrated interventions in “hotspots”, where there is a high concentration of one or more most-at-risk population and high-risk behavior is prevalent.
USAID, Uganda AIDS Capacity Enhancement (ACE) Project. The Uganda ACE Project strengthened the capacity of select entities in Uganda that play a key role in HIV/AIDS programs. As a project subcontractor, TRG provided organizational development expertise to local organizations and project staff. At the beginning of the project TRG designed a participatory self-assessment tool and trained local consultants to conduct the assessments. The target organizations included the Uganda AIDS Commission (UAC), the Ministry of Health Resource Center, the Inter-religious Council of Uganda (IRCU), and the Joint Clinical Research Center (JCRC). Specific interventions included among others strategic leadership training for ICRU and the UAC Secretariat, organizational restructuring of JCRC, and the development of an executive coaching program for senior leaders of the organizations that ACE assisted.
USAID, Capacity. As a core subcontracting partner under the USAID-funded Capacity Project, TRG was responsible for providing technical assistance support for Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria grants that were faltering in their performance and are unable to meet their targets. TRG provided technical assistance to Country Coordinating Mechanisms (the organizations that develop proposals for Global Fund grants and oversee their implementation), Principal Recipients (the local government or private organizations that receive the grants), and Sub Recipients (SRs) in 15 countries, including Swaziland, Lesotho, Togo, DRC, Senegal, Tanzania, Pakistan, and Indonesia. Our work included conducting organizational assessments, recommending and supporting organizational restructuring, strengthening human resources systems, facilitating strategic planning, and providing leadership development, management, and supervisory training.