Alliance Nationale contre le SIDA en Côte d’Ivoire funds new HIV activities

31 January 2007

Alliance Nationale contre le SIDA en Côte d’Ivoire, the newly created Alliance linking organisation in Côte d’Ivoire has awarded financial support to 41 organisations at a recent ceremony in its offices in Abidjan. Representatives from the organisations who have been selected for the fourth round of grants signed sub-grant agreements with the Alliance at a reception on 13 December 2006.

Grant funds have been awarded for implementing activities in the following thematic areas:

  • voluntary counselling and testing
  • care and support for orphans and children affected by HIV
  • care and support for people with HIV
  • prevention of mother-to-child transmission
  • care and support for people co-infected with HIV and tuberculosis
  • prevention with highly vulnerable groups.

Alliance Nationale contre le SIDA en Côte d’Ivoire was also involved in efforts to mark World AIDS Day in Côte d’Ivoire, organising a community village with the support of PEPFAR and USAID. Crowds of around 20,000 people came to hear actors in Côte d’Ivoire’s AIDS response answer their questions.

The initiative brought together 47 participants from communities, businesses, the Ministry of AIDS and government sectors who are all part of the country’s comprehensive HIV response. The minister in charge of the country’s AIDS response, Christine Nebout Adjobi, and the US Ambassador to Côte d’Ivoire, Haubrey Hooks, made an official visit to the community village.

Organisational change

Alliance Nationale contre le SIDA en Côte d’Ivoire has also completed the final phase of its transition into a locally governed linking organisation, working as part of the Alliance to provide a strong and comprehensive response to HIV in the country.

The transition, which took place in three phases, has involved close collaboration between the Alliance secretariat, the Côte d’Ivoire office and the board of directors over the past year and a half. Key events in the process were:

  • forming and training the new board
  • writing the organisation’s statutes and bye-laws
  • the inaugural general assembly meeting to create the new organisation
  • implementing financial and human resources procedures and policies
  • registering the organisation locally with the Côte d’Ivoire authorities
  • acquiring permission from USAID to transfer assets to a local organisation
  • drafting the legal agreements between the Alliance secretariat and Alliance Côte d’Ivoire.

All of this has been achieved while continuing to implement and scale up the organisation’s programme, recruit new members of staff and mobilise resources for the local linking organisation.