The SEEP Network HIV/AIDS and Microenterprise Development working group is partnering with The CYES Network to share lessons and improve communications across practitioners working on issues relating to HIV/AIDS, children, youth and economic strengthening. The following is an excerpt from the HAMED invitation to engage in the group's activities this year. Access the full invite here.
Colleagues,
On behalf of the SEEP working group on HIV & AIDS and Microenterprise Development (HAMED), we would like to extend an invitation to all interested parties to participate in our 2009 learning agenda. We will be exploring best practices in integrated health and economic development programming for communities affected by HIV &AIDS.
This year, we will be focusing on three key themes related to HIV/AIDS and microenterprise development:
1. Microinsurance
2. Savings led approaches
3. Cash transfers/ social protection interventions
Economic strengthening for vulnerable children and youth is an important issue that cuts across all three of these. We believe it is impossible to separate discussions on youth and children from discussions on appropriate financial services (microinsurance, savings, cash transfers) for communities affected by HIV & AIDS. Therefore, we are eager to collaborate with the CYES Network to investigate how health, financial and social services can best be designed, implemented and monitored to support the holistic development of children and youth affected by HIV & AIDS.
This paper, written from a health/HIV practitioner perspective, analyzes strategies for addressing the economic strengthening of orphans and vulnerable children in countries with a low prevalence of HIV/AIDS. It makes program and policy recommendations, filling an important gap in our understanding of programming for children affected by HIV/AIDS in South Asia and by inference, in other regions of low prevalence.
The study’s hypothesis is that:
- Economic strengthening (ES) of children affected by HIV/AIDS and families is more effective if it is community based (rather than just household or individual based)
- Examples of ES with children affected by HIV/AIDS in low prevalence countries may be different to those found in high prevalence countries
- Examples of ES in Asia involving communities are many, home grown and not necessarily in the HIV portfolio, with many lessons learned from the poverty alleviation sector
- Whatever the examples and interventions, ES is critical as it directly affects children’s access to services – education, health, nutrition and psycho-social
The study used a case study method to test this hypothesis, identifying four programs of ES and children affected by HIV/AIDS in three countries of Asia – India, Bangladesh and Cambodia. The projects are representative of the diversity and scope of the study and were selected using a child lens – which projects address children who are most affected and vulnerable to HIV?
