Perfomance grading of AIDS NGOs: An experiment of Kerala SACS

[Guest guest]

Dear Forum,

Kerala State AIDS Control Society (KSACS) is currently implementing a

'Perfomance grading system for AIDS NGOs "

It has been an issue and still persist all over India for the State mechanism of

NACO to have a consistent partnership with NGOs for prevention focused

activities. It was not a matter of volunteerism which most of the NGOs turned to

the scene when Targeted Intervention (TI) has introduced.

And this year we witnessed the move of the country from the second last position

to the first in the number of infected even if there are controversies.

Significant involvement of CBOs for prevention was the core component of TI when

conceptualized and what has been established by the NGO sector with in this long

period of 7 years are meager. Even the most existing ones are detained by the

mother NGOs.

In this situation a bold step has been taken by Kerala SASC to grade the NGOs

doing composite intervention following a termination of the underperformed

proving the standard of TI in the state. In the 53 NGO run PSH projects 23 has

been stopped, following all the staff of PSH projects in the state has been

terminated from 31st October 06.

It matters that this group include peer educators from the target communities

and PLWHAs. A centralized recruitment process is going on to fill professional

posts primarily from this month. Hope this will help setting up a panel of

experienced professionals along the state to take up TI in the state. But the

leftovers like field staff, peer educators and PLWHAs can not be simply ignored.

As Mr. Rajan Khobragade, PD of KSACS had declared in the NACO meeting that the

TI in the state will be handed over to the stake holder community, it is also

observed as a criterion to execute this mission. Whatever it may be, it is

certain that the attitude of the terminated NGOs who are holding an upper hand

in the relationship with various stakeholder communities in the local region

which has been established as a result of several years’ involvement in the

field will be an determining factor in the CBO mission of the SACS.

Also there are some doubts like whether the process of community mobilization

and empowerment will contribute beyond the extended TI activities in to the

divergent groups of the target population which are many and distinct.

Lively hood or alternative income programme are not proposed for the primary

stakeholder communities like Sex workers even in the National policies rather

efforts are being taken seemingly to legalize sex work. Instead in TI they are

educated only for safe sex practices and negotiation for the same.

Also it seems idle to encompass all the high risk population through the process

of CBO mobilization and this process is not enough to cater all prevention means

reach the target population and if so, what components of TI are going to hand

over to the CBOs.

I think there needs a thorough work to incorporate these areas before finalizing

the components of this process as we can’t suggest a prevention package to the

stakeholders as it is not at all

practical.

Shanty Neleyappa

e-mail: shan_neley@...