Promoting Civil Society Voices on Universal Access in Asia and the Pacific

none 01 Avr 2008 – 9:15 (modified on 02 Avr 2008 – 14:32)

by Molly Lepeska

Participants at the Key Correspondents training in Chiang Mai

In the Asia and Pacific region, as in many parts of the world, there is a wide gap between the promises made to achieve universal access to HIV and AIDS prevention, treatment, care and support and the actual implementation of these promises.

In addition, civil society groups in the region face unique challenges with regards to universal access. These challenges include the lack of civil society involvement in the target-setting process to ensure ambitious targets are set, the limited data collection mechanisms employed by this process, and the under-representation of key civil society groups, such as men who have sex with men (MSM) and people who use drugs. Individuals from these groups are unable to, due to the stigma, legal reforms, and policy restraints associated with these groups, engage with such processes. Service delivery for people who use drugs, for example, remains at less than 10 per cent within the region – clearly showing a lack of access to services and often as well, the inability to openly advocate for universal access to treatment and care.

“In Asia, the most vulnerable and affected communities are often the ones which have the least influence over the content and process of interventions that seek to assist them. Across the region, people who use drugs are routinely ignored by authorities unless they seek to incarcerate or punish drug users”, says Pascal Tanguay, a representative of the Asian Harm Reduction Network.

Additional challenges faced by universal access campaigners within the region include language barriers for civil society groups and individuals, restricting the engagement of outspoken actors, and poor infrastructure. This is specifically relevant in countries such as Papua New Guinea where larger international processes simply do not go. For example, the UNGASS 2008 report from this country did not include many districts in this country, despite the presence of strong local and regional activists and advocates in these.

On top of these challenges campaigners are up against, they often don’t have access to relevant information on universal access. In order to hold governments to account on the universal access promises they have made, civil society must be able to understand what universal access is, what their governments have committed to as well as what they are or are not doing to achieve universal access, and how they can use this information to challenge their governments and educate their communities.

“To fully achieve the goals of universal access, the disparity between universal access - the concept - and how civil society and affected communities translate and use the concept must be closed,” said Nadine France, Executive Director of Health and Development Networks (HDN). “This includes providing civil society with usable information about universal access both as a concept and how it translates at a local level, forums where civil society can share their experiences and stories, and ways to put this information into practice,”

In an effort to fill this information gap, HDN, the 7 Sisters Coalition of the Asia Pacific Regional Network on HIV/AIDS (7 Sisters), the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC), the Asia Pacific Network of People Living with HIV (APN+), the Asian Harm Reduction Network (AHRN) and the World AIDS Campaign (WAC) are coordinating a documentation project that will give civil society the information and tools to mobilise around universal access in the Asia and Pacific.

The first step in this documentation project was a Key Correspondents training that took place in early March in Chiang Mai, Thailand. At the training, Key Correspondents, citizen journalists representing diverse communities who write about HIV and AIDS and related issues, were briefed on how to document key issues in national contexts related to universal access. The goal of the Key Correspondents initiative is to better document community voices, particularly the voices of marginalised groups, with regards to universal access in their countries.

“It is imperative to put a human face and voice to HIV as it is not just a virus that requires containment through medical practises but a complex issue that must be addressed in a holistic way by making full use of the voices of the communities most affected,” states Greg Gray, from the ITPC,. “people living with HIV have an absolutely critical role to play in addressing the HIV epidemic and the successes in scaled up services to prevention, access to treatment, care and support.”

Documenting community voices, particularly the perspectives of marginalised groups is one of the overall objectives of documentation project. The other objectives include: increasing participation and understanding in civil society of the universal access process at the country and regional level, identifying best practises on universal access at a national level, promoting on the ground campaigning and allowing civil society to participate in regional coordination around processes such as UNGASS. Additionally, this project will give government and other key organisations access to the civil society experiences at a local level and ensure that marginalised groups have an equal voice in the universal access process.

“Public calls and community recommendations to address drugs and HIV through comprehensive approaches, including harm reduction, have fallen on deaf ears for at least a decade. This project represents a unique opportunity and a singular mechanism to empower communities in identifying areas of strategic importance for them and to disseminate their message to wide audiences across the globe,” adds Pascal Tanguay.

This documentation project will be carried out through online discussion forums, country bulletins, regional publications as well as via stories written by local Key Correspondents. By working within the Key Correspondence process, facilitated by HDN, local writers can receive professional reporting skills, while still have the opportunity to write about matters that are important to them at a local level.

In the training session in Chiang Mai, Thailand, which brought together Key Correspondents from Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, China and India, participants improved their article writing skills alongside their knowledge of universal access and local engagement with international processes. After identifying key issues within their individual countries and communities, these new Key Correspondents were encouraged to develop multiple story ideas that would highlight many of the issues identified, and their links to universal access targets and mechanisms.

Ratri Suryadarma, an Indonesian Key Correspondent at the training who is working in Malaysia, identified with her Malaysia-focused group at least five issues that are priorities within the country and community. These included concerns around access to treatment for migrant workers and people who use drugs. To date Ratri has written six articles in less than a month on these and other issues identified during the training.

While there is still a far way to go to achieve universal access in the region, the documentation project gives civil society campaigners tools that bring them closer to holding leaders into account by providing campaigners with accessible and usable information on universal access and promoting the voices of campaigners who speak for their own communities.

As Greg Gray says, “Unless we target stigma and discrimination head on by sharing our experiences good and bad we won’t be able to achieve the ambitious targets set by the universal access process which requires leadership and commitment from every level.”

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