The role of civil society
Civil society has been very active in the response to HIV and AIDS. However, real involvement of civil society in policy processes has varied. Many argue that it needs to play a critical role in both establishing and implementing appropriate strategy responses.
Senegal's experience in the first round of the Global Fund highlights both the potential problems and solutions to how government, multilateral organisations and civil society organisations (CSOs) can work together to achieve results. In response to a number of issues, Senegal's National AIDS Alliance, the Alliance Nationale Contre le SIDA (ANCS) established a watchdog Observatory to critically examine government response to HIV and create a forum to strengthen national responses. The Observatory resulted in improved involvement of CSOs in national policy development and thinking, as well as government acceptance of working with stakeholders. Senegal's success highlights a number of issues that need to be considered for government and civil society to work together in other national contexts:
Senegal's experience in the first round of the Global Fund highlights both the potential problems and solutions to how government, multilateral organisations and civil society organisations (CSOs) can work together to achieve results. In response to a number of issues, Senegal's National AIDS Alliance, the Alliance Nationale Contre le SIDA (ANCS) established a watchdog Observatory to critically examine government response to HIV and create a forum to strengthen national responses. The Observatory resulted in improved involvement of CSOs in national policy development and thinking, as well as government acceptance of working with stakeholders. Senegal's success highlights a number of issues that need to be considered for government and civil society to work together in other national contexts:
- in order to strengthen the response, how can CSO advocacy and action work at a national level to facilitate change? Things can change on the ground but there need to be links between local, national, international initiatives.
- how can INGOs, multilateral and bilateral organisations work with CSOs in the south? How can they work together and in parallel?
- how does learning about policy advocacy get disseminated at local /regional and national level? What are the strengths of academic institutions and other organisations?
