What is GIPA?
The Greater involvement of People Living with HIV (GIPA) GIPA is a principle that aims to realise the rights and responsibilities of people living with HIV, including their right to participation in decision-making processes that affect their lives. In these efforts, GIPA aims to enhance the quality and effectiveness of the AIDS response and is critical to halting and reversing the epidemic. The idea that personal experiences should shape the AIDS response was first voiced by PLHIV in Denver in 1983. The GIPA principle was formalised at the 1994 Paris AIDS Summit.
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Why do we need GIPA?
Publicly acknowledged involvement helps to reduce stigma and discrimination and can be a powerful tool in breaking down the barriers of fear and prejudice. Positive people have a great deal to contribute towards the challenges posed by the epidemic. They have directly experienced the factors that make individuals and communities vulnerable to HIV infection. Once infected, PLHIV have experienced strategies for managing HIV-related illnesses. Therefore, their meaningful involvement in programme development and implementation, as well as policy making, is logical and will improve the relevance, acceptability and effectiveness of HIV programmes.
Different levels of involvement
Pyramids of involvement illustrate different ways of participation for PLHIV, from policy makers to personal involvement. The greatest involvement would be when PLHIV participate in development of AIDS-related policy at local, national and international level. This involvement attends the two aspect of the principle: the right of PLHIV to have a voice on one hand and on the other enhance the quality and effectiveness of the AIDS response. Read more...
Challenges to achieving GIPA
The main challenges to implementing GIPA at higher levels the difficulty of PLHIV acknowledging HIV status publicly; the lack of organisations prepared to involve PLHIV; lack of skills and preparations for PLHIV and lack of proper conditions for HIV-positive people within organisations.
Organisations and networks of people living with HIV, central to the achievement of GIPA, face many challenges. These challenges include: weak management, low skill levels, funding constraints, difficulties in representing the diversity of people living with HIV, a lack of documentation of their histories of self-empowerment and a lack of evaluation of successes and failures. Energy spent on basic survival, including fighting for access to treatment for HIV and opportunistic infections, care and support as well as financial insecurity can also be critical barriers to the participation of people living with HIV in their own organisations and networks.
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