Linking learning and action: the importance of research
23 July 2008
The Institute of Development Studies and the International HIV/AIDS Alliance have announced a new ongoing research partnership that will explore topics such as access to treatment care, health systems and effective influencing strategies.
The collaboration is underpinned by the belief that there is a need to strengthen the links between evidence, and policy and practice.
HIV is one of the health and development challenges of our time. Despite the fact that HIV and AIDS was identified more than a quarter of a century ago the global community is falling behind the alarming, complex and often hidden progress of the virus.
Too often, action on AIDS is viewed through religious, cultural, political and financial frameworks without considering the importance of the evidence base for each of these. Far too often strong evidence on what works is not translated into policy and actions
“If we are to meet internationally agreed targets there is a need to ask critical questions of ourselves and those influential organisations that finance and direct the response to the pandemic,” said Alvaro Bermejo, Executive Director of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance.
These questions include:
- how do we ensure that efforts to strengthen health systems and provide timely and appropriate services for HIV and AIDS are mutually reinforcing?
- what ‘package’ of HIV treatment and care services should be provided in different settings?
- how can we learn from and build on the considerable resilience shown by affected groups – sex workers, people living with HIV, men who have sex with men, people who use drugs?
There have been diverse, creative and successful responses to the pandemic. Usually they have been informed by the lived experiences of communities existing on the front line of the fight against HIV. There are lessons to be learned from these successful interventions.
Increasing access to antiretroviral treatment and to prevention is now pushing us to consider the optimum design for future health systems.
The role of people living with HIV, as therapeutic citizens, as well as that of other groups affected by HIV may provide us with models that can transform and reinvent the way we conceive health and development.
“We are proud of our partnership and believe that high quality, relevant research findings are crucial to the design, management and delivery of quality, comprehensive HIV programmes in poor settings,” said IDS Director Laurence Haddad.
For more information about the project, please contact Fabian Cataldo, Senior Research Officer, International HIV/AIDS Alliance.
