HIV and AIDS mainstreaming in the education sector ensures that addressing HIV and AIDS is not an add-on or a separate activity but an integral part of education sector policies, strategies and actions. While the main responsibility for mainstreaming lies with ministries of education in each country, development cooperation agencies, including both development- and humanitarian-oriented multilateral and bilateral agencies, as well as non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and other civil society organisations, can play a supportive role. Experience has shown, however, that education staff in these agencies face a variety of challenges in supporting the mainstreaming of HIV and AIDS. These include difficulties in starting and sustaining dialogue, deciding on key entry points, priorities and strategies for moving the mainstreaming process along, and in deciding how to involve key stakeholders.
This toolkit aims to help education staff from development cooperation agencies to support the process of mainstreaming HIV and AIDS into education sector planning and implementation. It provides resources and support to assess the progress countries have made with respect to HIV and AIDS mainstreaming; to identify entry points and opportunities; and to establish priorities for advocacy and action. It should also help staff to engage with other colleagues in the sector, such as ministry of education staff and partners working for NGOs.
The kit is split into twelve tools addressing a number of issues including:
- why is mainstreaming HIV and AIDS important? Experience has demonstrated that when sectors claim to be mainstreaming HIV and AIDS, often they are in fact engaged in HIV- and AIDS-specific work. With specific work (also called ‘HIV and AIDS integration’), HIV and AIDS become ‘add-ons’, without regard for the core business of the sector or organisation
- critical elements to successful HIV and AIDS mainstreaming
- what is the status of mainstreaming? In many countries, education ministries will already have made some progress towards the mainstreaming of HIV & AIDS and SRHR. A useful starting point in developing a strategy for an agency to support mainstreaming processes is to assess the current situation
- identifying opportunities and entry points for HIV and AIDS mainstreaming. One of the areas that education officers in development cooperation agencies struggle with the most is ‘how to’ get HIV and AIDS mainstreaming on the agenda
Source: Eldis
