Performance Review Workshop for ZACP

The past 3 days have been really long but really productive and interesting days. I was invited to represent ZANGOC at a workshop hosted by the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare to review and evaluate the achievements, challenges, gaps and solutions that were utilized towards the achievement of the previous strategic plan for ZACP (Zanzibar AIDS Control Program) which ended in 2010.

There were roughly 30 participants in this workshop from various government and nongovernmental organizations such as:

• The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare
• The Department of Substance Abuse, Prevention and Rehabilitation (Read about their work in Zanzibar)
• ICAP (International Center for AIDS Care and Treatment Programs)
• ZAC (Zanzibar AIDS Commission)
• ZACP (Zanzibar AIDS Control Program)
• ZAPHA+ (Zanzibar Association of People Living with HIV and AIDS)
• ZANGOC
• ZANA (Zanzibar Nurses Association)
• UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund)
• UNICEF

One the first day of the workshops, 8 groups were established to represent each strategic area of ZACP. These groups were:

• Home Based Care
• Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission
• Monitoring, Evaluation and Management
• MARPs and STIs (Most at Risk Populations including: MSM [Men who have sex with Men], IDUs [Injection Drug Users] and CSWs [Commercial Sex Workser] and Sexually Transmitted Infections). This group also included condom programming and STI management
• Care and Treatment (including HIV counseling and testing, HIV in infants and blood transfusion
• Behaviour Change Communication (BCC) which included IEC (Information, Education and Communication), advocacy as well as stigma and discrimination
• Laboratory Services
• Institutional Capacity (including pharmaceutical services)

I was in the Behaviour Change Communication (BCC) group along with a colleague from ZANGOC, a Program Officer from ZAC, an Assistant Program Manager from ZACP in Pemba and a Program Analyst in Reproductive Health from UNFPA.

What is BCC/IEC and Advoacay? 

Behaviour Change Communication (BCC): This is a strategy, which refers to the systematic attempt to modify/influence behavior, or practices and environmental factors related to that behavior, which indirectly or directly promote health, prevent illness or protect individuals from harm.

Information, Education and Communication (IEC): IEC combines strategies, approaches and methods that enable individuals, families, groups, organizations and communities to play active roles in achieving, protecting and sustaining their own health. Embodied in IEC is the process of learning that empowers people to make decisions, modify behaviours and change social conditions.

Advocacy: aims to influence public-policy and resource allocation decisions within political, economic, and social systems and institutions; it may be motivated from moral, ethical or faith principles or simply to protect an asset of interest. Advocacy can include many activities that a person or organization undertakes including media campaigns, public speaking, commissioning and publishing research. Lobbying is a form of advocacy where a direct approach is made to legislators on an issue which plays a significant role in modern politics.

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Throughout the 3 days the BCC group worked on identifying the achievements, facilitating factors, gaps in previous response as well as challenges in achieving the strategic activities for BCC on the past strategic plan, what was done and what can be done within the next 5 years to achieve the BCC strategic issues that still exist in Zanzibar. 

We identified the following issues, challenges and goals within BCC:

Click the table to enlarge!

The next step:

The facilitator of this workshop will be combining the proposed strategic issues from each of the 8 groups over the course of the next week. After this is complete, we will all meet again for another workshop from June 6th to 9th in order to review the issues and work to draft a new strategic plan for ZACP. 

How this helps ZANGOC:

Since I am also working to draft ZANGOC's strategic plan for 2011 -2016, the information, issues and goals proposed during the ZACP workshop will be very useful. I will be able to identify the issues that ZANGOC can also work to achieve over the next 5 years, in accordance with those of the Government of Zanzibar (ZACP, ZAC and the Ministry of Health).