Celebrating ten years of collaboration with USAID

12 March 2008

February 2008 saw the conclusion of a ten-year grant between the Alliance and USAID that has been one of the most important funding mechanisms in the Alliance’s history. Over its ten-year period, the grant has provided support to 23 of the Alliance’s 29 current linking organisations to grow, develop and mature, allowing them in turn to provide grant, technical and organisational support to local community-based organisations.

© International HIV/AIDS Alliance

Responding to the critical need to build indigenous community-based responses to the HIV pandemic, USAID supported the Alliance’s work from 1997 to 2007. Based on several evaluations and studies demonstrating the initial success of the Alliance, USAID signed an initial five-year grant in 1997. The grant had a ceiling of $25 million. The Alliance’s success during the initial five-year period gave USAID the confidence to extend the grant for a second phase until 2007, with an increased ceiling of $75 million.
© IHAA 2008

To celebrate the partnership, the Alliance hosted a close out event with USAID on 26 February in Washington, DC. The event highlighted the continued relevance of the Alliance model and its focus on community action on HIV, as well as reviewing how the work over the last ten years has contributed to building sustainable national responses to the epidemic.

The Alliance’s founding Executive Director, Jeff O’Malley, and the first Chair of the Alliance Board of Trustees and former President of Population Council, George Zeidenstein, shared stories from the Alliance’s earliest days. Ken Yamashita, Director, David Stanton, Division Director, Technical Leadership and Research and John Crowley, Division Director, Implementation Support Division attended from USAID’s Office of HIV/AIDS.

Case studies from Cote d’Ivoire and the Caribbean prompted rich discussions and the overall results helped frame the successes and lessons learned.

The USAID ten-year grant has supported the Alliance in developing a true community-led response by building sustainable indigenous civil society organisations. The success of this investment is demonstrated by the fact that all country and regional programme activities supported through the ten-year grant are continuing beyond the end of the grant through new funding mechanisms.

You can read more about the close out event and find a copy of the grant’s final report on the Alliance website: www.aidsalliance.org/usaidreport.