Advocacy Project (PTAP)

The five-year, ten-country project “Community-Based Advocacy and Networking to Scale-up HIV Prevention in an Era of Expanded treatment” (or Prevention and Treatment Advocacy Project - PTAP) is an advocacy and networking initiative led by ICASO’s International and Regional Secretariats. It aims to build an enabling policy and programming environment in support of comprehensive national responses to the HIV and AIDS.

Working with the ICASO Regional Secretariats, national focal point organizations have built capacity and strong partnerships and coalitions of civil society organizations for advocacy around aligning and expanding prevention and treatment programs and services. PTAP operates in China, India, Russia, Ukraine, Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, Botswana, Jamaica and Belize.

A recent mid-term review of PTAP has shown that this locally-owned project is achieving significant results in community sector mobilizations and advocacy. For example, in Kenya, KANCO facilitated consultations with the community sector to input into discussions on the government’s proposed AIDS Prevention and Control Bill. Communities called for the inclusion of a stronger statement on scaling-up HIV prevention and treatment, eliminating prejudice and discrimination in health settings, and protecting confidentiality of HIV status. In Russia, where only the government can legally implement harm reduction programs for injecting drug users, NGOs are advocating to have the right to also deliver these programs.