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PANCAP launches regional capacity building project

May 02, 2015 News

As efforts continue to reduce overall HIV transmission rates in the region, the Pan Caribbean Partnership against HIV and AIDS (PANCAP) launched a three-year project to build capacities in regional organisations.
The project, known as the Local Capacity Initiative Project (LCI), was recently launched in Trinidad and Tobago during a two-day meeting. It is funded by both President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
According to PANCAP, the project seeks to build the capacity of one regional organisation and several local Community Service Organisations (CSOs) that specifically focus their efforts on key populations affected by HIV/AIDS, including men who have sex with men (MSM) and sex workers.
Furthermore, the LCI Project will enable the organisations to become more sustainable as their works continue in reducing the transmission of HIV in the Caribbean.
Through the new project, local CSOs will receive grants for activities including policy and advocacy, programme implementation and the building of a financially diverse organisation.
Additionally, PANCAP will facilitate the identification and provision of technical assistance to the CSOs along with other regional bodies in need of assistance.
A number of regional organisations were brought together in the twin-island country to foster the development of their groups. Throughout the meeting, the importance of tackling key populations through advocacy and policy was emphasised. Further, during the meeting, participants developed capacity building initiatives and plans to create cohesion between the LCI Project and PANCAP’s Justice for All Programme. The CSOs also agreed on target countries for the project.
The meeting also identified the gaps in CSOs’ capacities which hinder achievement of their mandates, examined the content, mechanisms and processes for capacity building and identified key requirements for optimizing the outcomes of the LCI project.
The LCI project was informed by the epidemiology of HIV in the Caribbean, which has an HIV prevalence rate of one percent among adults, and is the second-hardest hit region in the world after sub-Saharan Africa.
Recent data coming out of the Caribbean Regional Strategic Framework on HIV/AIDS show that Caribbean men who have sex with men (MSM) are five to 10 times more likely than the general population to be living with HIV.
Of note, prevalence among MSM may be as much as 10 times higher than the rest of the population in Jamaica. In 2012, the prevalence of HIV in MSM was at 32 per cent in Jamaica. Similarly in the Dominican Republic, prevalence is 11 per cent among MSM in contrast to less than one per cent for the general population.
Further, prevalence among MSM is similarly high in Trinidad and Tobago at 19 percent and Haiti at 18 percent.
Despite major strides in the fight against HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean, stigma and discrimination still remain a major issue.
During a recent forum, Director of the Pan Caribbean against HIV and AIDS (PANCAP) Dereck Springer explained that PANCAP developed the Justice for All programme and is working with its member countries and partners to address the elimination of stigma and discrimination. The programme also addresses the need for modification and repeal of discriminatory laws “that prevent people from accessing prevention, care and treatment services”.
The programme also identified 15 actionable items, including the repeal of the buggery laws along with the improvement of services for persons with disabilities.
Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Joseph Hamilton, had also indicated the need for the removal of taboos traditionally held by Guyanese, particularly in dealing with persons from the LGBT community.
“While we may be doing good in the general population, we have the key population to address that we were neglecting to focus on,” Hamilton said.
He continued, “For us to be successful in dealing with that population, we have to leave our religion at home…we would not be able to be successful if we carry our religion with us when we engage key persons.”
Springer further said that efforts to reduce stigma and discrimination are ongoing at the country level by both governmental and non-governmental bodies. “We need to recognize that we live in a diverse world and we therefore need to get to the point where we can respect differences,” Springer said.

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