Experiences from Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, and Uganda
This report documents several promising practices focused on community engagement for PMTCT implemented under the Optimizing HIV Treatment Access for Pregnant and Breastfeeding Women (OHTA) Initiative. OHTA, a UNICEF-supported initiative with funding from the Governments of Norway and Sweden, aimed to accelerate access to Option B+ for the elimination of mother-to-child transmission in Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, and Uganda.
In an effort to strengthen cross-country learning about effective community engagement activities and inform future PMTCT programming, this report includes implementation details, outcomes, factors for success, and considerations for scale-up and sustainability based on the OHTA Initiative’s experiences. The information and data included in this report were collected by project staff in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs (CCP) through a desk review of existing OHTA Initiative documents, including annual reports, partner reports, and presentations. CCP and project staff also made site visits to each country to conduct interviews and focus group discussions with the implementing organisations, programme participants, and Ministries of Health (MOHs).
Five promising practices for the elimination of mother-to-child transmission were identified based on the collective experiences in all four countries: male engagement, community client tracing, Community Mentor Mothers, Health Advisory Committees (HACs), and rationalization of implementing partners and services. This report first provides an overview of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the four countries supported by the OHTA Initiative and of the five promising practices as implemented under the OHTA Initiative. It then follows with a detailed description of each promising practice, including similarities and differences with implementation in each country, outcomes of the promising practice, factors for success, and essential programme elements. Download the country reports of the promising practices here.