Accelerating the Education Sector response to HIV
The education sector has been increasingly recognized as playing a key ‘external’ role in prevention and in reducing stigma, and an important ‘internal’ role in providing access to care, treatment and support for teachers and staff, a group that in many countries represents more than 60 per cent of the public sector workforce.
In 2002, the UNAIDS Inter-Agency Task Team on Education (see leaflet) established a working group – known as the ‘Accelerate Initiative Working Group’ – to support countries in sub-Saharan Africa as they ‘accelerate the education sector response to HIV and AIDS’. The philosophy of the Accelerate Initiative is to promote bottom-up planning and activism, informed by regional and national, proven examples of good practice. This is intended to lead to the establishment of programs with strong local ownership, capable of accessing suitable funding and implementation at all levels of the education sector.
Key partners of the Initiative include: governments, United Nations agencies, bilateral partners and civil society, as well as key stakeholders, including people living with HIV and AIDS, teachers’ unions and the media. During the following five years, education sectors of 37 countries, responsible for more than 200 million, or 85.5 per cent of, school-age children and 2.6 million, or 74.3 per cent of, primary and secondary schoolteachers, participated in this demand-led Initiative of sub-regional and national processes, resulting in extensive information sharing and significant achievements.
Accelerating Education’s Response to HIV and AIDS - a summary
2002-2007
Number of African countries in the Accelerate Initiative Networks
Average number of days between training events
Total number of training days to date
Number of education sector staff members who have participated in training events
Number of person/training days conducted
Number of agencies, NGOs and development partners that have participated in the Accelerate process
Percentage of participating African governments that are using both education and AIDS-specific funds to support their school health programs
Number of document titles that have been distributed
Number of document copies distributed to education practitioners
Number of monthly hits on the website www.schoolsandhealth.org |
37
60
120
1,350
162,000
76
75
95
250,000
100,000
|
For more information click on the following links:
Goal and objectives of the Accelerate Initiative
Chronology and Details of Accelerate Workshops
Development partners involvement in Accelerate Workshops
Ministry of Education HIV&AIDS Networks
Accelerate Initiative Working Group