KHANA celebrates ten years of Alliance partnership as Cambodian prevalence rate drops
24 September 2007
On 8 August 2007, KHANA, the Alliance’s linking organisation in Cambodia, marked a decade of partnership with the Alliance – at the same time that the Cambodian government announced encouraging new HIV prevalence rates of 0.9% among adults, down from 1.2% in 2003.
To mark the anniversary, and to commemorate the achievements and expansion of KHANA since its foundation in 1996, a celebration was organised at KHANA’s Phnom Penh office. A great success, the festivities were attended by senior figures from the Cambodian government, KHANA staff and volunteers, consultants and partners, a delegation from the Alliance secretariat – past and present – and regional Alliance partners from Bangladesh, China, India, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Ukraine.
Tony Lisle, UNAIDS Country Co-ordinator and Chair of KHANA’s Board of Directors, opened the event. “KHANA has never been stronger,” he said. “During its first decade, it has become a confident contributor to the HIV response in [Cambodia], and it enjoys the respect of the donor community, the government and fellow non-governmental organisations… KHANA is now a flourishing, independent and influential organisation.”
Jane Waterman, director of communications and resource mobilisation at the Alliance, acknowledged KHANA’s rapid progress over the last ten years: “The Alliance’s relationship with KHANA has changed and evolved significantly over this period,” she said. “The Alliance secretariat was significantly involved in direct implementation in the early years but has gradually stepped back and watched KHANA develop to play a lead role in terms of a national organisation’s response to the epidemic”.
KHANA’s Executive Director, Dr. Oum Sopheap, looked outside the organisation, noting the many contributors to its success. “KHANA’s growth would have been impossible,” he said, “without the consistent support of the Alliance partnership, the [Cambodian] government, KHANA’s board members, its staff, partners, donors such as USAID…. and the men, women and children who have inspired KHANA’s work with their bravery, their determination, and their strength”.
The celebration was happily framed by the Cambodian Ministry of Health’s announcement of new HIV prevalence rates, a statistic complemented by an estimated fall in the same period of the number of people living with HIV from 130,000 to 65,000 (National Centre for HIV/AIDS, Dermatology and STDs, 2007). The estimates confirm a downward trend in the epidemic since 1997, when prevalence peaked at 3% (UNAIDS 1997). Cambodia is therefore one of the few countries to have so far achieved Millennium Development Goal 6: halting and reversing the spread of HIV by 2015.
While reduced national prevalence gives momentary cause for celebration, HIV remains a huge burden on Cambodia’s health and social services. Changes in the character of the epidemic have had an impact on KHANA’s programmes, and they are now committed to addressing the disturbing trend of new infections occurring among married women and newborns and the pressing need for impact mitigation. This commitment is shared by the rest of the Alliance partnership, which will continue to support KHANA into the future.
