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id21 invites development workers, activists and researchers to contribute their points of view on development issues. Ingrid Young, editor of the Eldis HIV and AIDS Resource Guide, comments on information sharing and its impact on HIV and AIDS policy.

Listening and learning are crucial in the response to HIV and AIDS

Is high level HIV and AIDS policy cut off from the reality on the ground? Ingrid Young, editor of the Eldis HIV and AIDS Resource Guide, argues that policymakers need to listen to and learn from each other as well as from communities who are experiencing and responding to the crisis.

Participants at a recent workshop hosted by the Institute of Development Studies to explore the links and interrelationships between HIV, AIDS and vulnerability identified a number of concerns:

• There is a major gulf between reality and policy. High level policy seems almost entirely unrelated to (or unaware of) implementation on the ground.
• Policymakers need to listen and learn from communities’ needs, experiences and responses: communities have independently responded to the AIDS crisis with considerable success.
• We need to think about our own prejudices. Workshop participants cited the experiences of harm reduction programmes in China and the promotion of safe sex by Muslim leaders in Senegal, as examples of HIV and AIDS interventions that policymakers might assume wouldn’t work in these country contexts.
• We must think about how real change is local and how we should learn from this.

What does all this mean? These issues point to a breakdown in the way information, experience and knowledge is shared and managed. In particular, they highlight how:

• Community and regional experiences of preventing and responding to HIV and AIDS are not widely shared, either across regions or at an international level.
• There is a lack of information sharing and dialogue between affected communities, civil society and policymakers.
• There is a lack of exchange across disciplines, given that established fields of research create silos of information and argue over what form credible evidence takes. How can the personal stories and experiences of people living with HIV and AIDS factor into policy responses based on national HIV prevalence statistics?

These problems are not unique to HIV and AIDS; the entire development sector faces similar challenges. However, the global focus on HIV and AIDS could provide the momentum and resources to address these knowledge sharing issues on a wider scale.

The answer does not necessarily lie in creating new research initiatives and programmes, but in harnessing what is already happening and making it accessible to the wider community. The China HIV/AIDS Information Network (CHAIN), an NGO working in partnership with government in China, is addressing these issues. CHAIN is working with civil society and grassroots organisations and with Chinese health officials and agencies, to develop an information network that meets the needs of a multi-sectoral response to HIV and AIDS. (For more information see http://www.chain.net.cn/)

The development community needs to focus on what communities and organisations are already doing, not only in their response to HIV and AIDS, but also in terms of how they share their information and experiences and how they collectively identify challenges and solutions. We must also think more broadly about existing and potential networks as well as the mechanisms for dialogue between, within and across these networks. How can these networks be enhanced and facilitated? How can development organisations and institutions, with access to global networks, strengthen the sharing of information and facilitate building on experiences?

The challenges posed by HIV and AIDS have resulted in significant community and global responses. However, it is only when these experiences are shared that we can work together to create sustainable, innovative and successful responses to HIV and AIDS.

Contributor
Ingrid Young
Eldis/Health Resource Centre Resource Guides
Institute of Development Studies
University of Sussex
Brighton, East Sussex
BN1 9RE
UK
Tel +44 (0) 1273 873335
Email i.young@ids.ac.uk

December 2005

Sources
Eldis/Health Resource Centre HIV and AIDS Resource Guide

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