Regional AIDS prevention project (879-0022) : project activity completion report

As planned, the SPC developed an AIDS/STD Information Exchange Center, which collected and cataloged books, posters, leaflets and other print materials, videos, audiotapes, condom packages and t-shirts, which can be copied or photographed on request, or used for displays. The Center boasts extensive mailing lists, to which it has disseminated accession lists (with over 1,500 entries); separate accession lists for materials in French were distributed as well. The project also developed information resource centers in each of the Pacific countries at National AIDS Committees or national libraries. The project also produced and disseminated a range of materials, including 11 issues of a quarterly AIDS/STD Pacific Bulletin (more than 9,000 copies of the latest issue were printed, in English and French), four posters (3,000 copies each), two comic books (10,000 copies), two videos, radio spots, materials for use by secondary schoolteachers, and items such as key rings and bookmarks promoting the safe sex message. The SPC small grants program made a significant contribution, funding 75 grants (generally under $5,000), with 17 more under consideration, in 20 Pacific Island countries. Both NGOs and government agencies have received grants for, inter alia, drama projects, training of trainer projects (with teachers, persons in the prison system, and youth and women's organizations), resource libraries, educational materials development, and awareness seminars. Detailed evaluations of the grants in five countries revealed a great deal of networking among government, NGO, and community entities, as well as an appreciation by government agencies of NGOs' ability to reach audiences at the grassroots level. Training included national and regional workshops and courses on AIDS education; observational travel within the region and to the United States, Australia, and third countries for selected national and community leaders; media training for NGO and other personnel; and workshops for communities and other target groups (this was the most common use of small grants funding). The most common training role played by the project was to provide observers, facilitators, or resource persons to training events organized by other agencies in the region. Media training, which was implemented by the Regional Media Centre on the basis of the needs of health educators and broadcasters in the region, was the greatest success. Radio training focused on the importance of a campaign style to address AIDS/STD issues and provided a large number of people with needed technical skills. The project also engaged in advocacy efforts with religious leaders and the media and was successful in promoting acceptance of the need for a multisectoral approach to AIDS prevention. The following lessons were learned. (1) Meetings of the Technical Advisory Group (which included representatives of other SPC AIDS donors, such as Australia and WHO) were not held frequently enough to be useful, evidently because of the geographic dispersion of the organizations involved. This problem was exacerbated when USAID shifted project management responsibilities to USAID/Philippines in July 1994. (2) Given the expected financial shortfalls in the near term, it is important that the future management structure of the project be sensitive to these issues. (3) Papua New Guinea's needs were so great that all the project's resources would have met only a small portion of them.