Frontiers Prevention Project
The Frontiers Prevention Project (FPP) was implemented from 2002-2008 by the Alliance to conduct targeted prevention interventions for populations placed at high-risk of HIV infection and transmission. FPP was a US$25m project supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Through evaluation, FPP has been proven to have made a significant contribution to reducing HIV infections in relatively low-prevalence countries that were put at risk by the growing HIV pandemic.
The Alliance’s FPP empowered people placed at high risk to HIV infections by improving advocacy within these groups, changing policies that affect these groups, and increasing community awareness.
The evaluation findings
The evaluation, published in the BMC Public Health journal in August, showed that the FPP reduced risk-taking behaviours and STI incidence, thereby resulting in a lower HIV incidence among most at risk populations, and secondarily among the general population. It also showed that by involving beneficiaries in program planning and dissemination community ownership of the programme and thus its sustainability after the FPP finished increased (the FPP has since been subsumed within the Avahan: India AIDS initiative, also supported by The Gates Foundation).
The Alliance’s well-defined sets of interventions, focused on population groups most affected by the epidemic, resulted in reduced incidence of HIV amongst these populations, thereby curbing the potential spread of the epidemic into the broader population. The evaluation stated that ‘these positive results suggest that a strong community component may significantly potentiate prevention impact.’
The article calls for more robust evaluation in the future to characterize and quantify the benefits and costs of different approaches for community engagement and mobilization to accompany the provision of prevention services.
You can read more about the Alliance’s work in Andhrah Pradesh in this report, and about the key indicators for the FPP here.
These positive results suggest that a strong community component may significantly potentiate prevention impact. 