United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

East Asia and Pacific

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		Project Code and Sector Project Strategy Project Document Log Frame

AD/RAS/I09 - Project on Strengthening Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care among Drug Users and in Prison Settings

1. Project Code and Sector

2. Project Strategy

The project aims toward the improvement of government agency capacities to reduce HIV vulnerability from harmful drug use among people in compulsory drug abuse treatment and rehabilitation facilities, in prisons and in selected local community settings.

The project will be implemented over a period of two years, providing an expanded opportunity for programme development that was initiated with MOU countries in 2003 through the regional project for the reduction of HIV vulnerability from drug abuse.

As a first step in the first year, the preestablished regional project organization and national drug control agency counterpart focal points, currently holding the title of National Project Coordinator, together with their respective working groups, will review and assess the opportunities for new or improved interventions within compulsory treatment and rehabilitation, and prison systems. Within that review, other national focal points will be identified or clarified for each of the compulsory treatment and rehabilitation and prison systems and invited to participate in national activities for the project duration.

The same national drug control agency counterpart focal points will also be asked to consider the review and identification of current national developments in the pursuit of community based peer education and outreach projects and services. International and national AIDS authorities will be consulted in this process. Senior public security/police authorities will also be consulted for advice and concurrence in the potential application of community policing models. The expected result will be a national inventory of outreach sites, of which one or two may be selected for the development of community policing models.

The regional project team, with assisting international expertise, will conduct a preliminary review of international research and experience surrounding proven effective practices in the development of advocacy campaigns in the general arena of HIV prevention, as well as the record of more specific developments with prison systems. Special attention will be given to the experiences of less developed countries so that potential replication or adaptation to Southeast Asia can be facilitated. On the basis of the review, a draft advocacy campaign plan will be prepared.

A similar, but more limited exercise will be undertaken with the assistance of an international (in house or external) expert to review international community policing concepts and practices.

A project inception meeting will be conducted with participation of all national drug control agency focal points and their core national team, together with representative and experts from international networks that are concerned with prison health reform. The purposes and outcomes of the project will be clarified. National focal points and team members will also serve as a informal focus group to review and contribute to a further elaboration of the regional advocacy campaign plan. They will also be expected to update or develop workplans for the realization of project outputs at the national level, including the further development of interventions in compulsory drug abuse treatment and rehabilitation services.

The inception meeting will be followed by the introduction of the advocacy campaign with public security, prison and police officials, together with selected national counterparts responsible for HIV/AIDS interventions, invited to attend a launching regional event of two or three days duration. The event will profile international best practices for a comprehensive approach to HIV/AIDS prevention in prison settings while also introducing opportunities for further collaboration at the national level. Products of the advocacy event will be published and distributed through hard copy and internet mechanisms.

The regional project team will follow up the launching activities with a series of specific consultations with national focal points and their partners to advocate and determine more specific areas of interest in the development of piloted activities. The regional project team will give priority to activities that have the widest potential influence on the national prison system, the national compulsory drug abuse treatment and rehabilitation system, and systems that support community development for a comprehensive approach to HIV/AIDS prevention in injecting drug users. Within the resources of the project, introduction of prison programme activities such as assessment will be considered.

National focal points will be expected to coordinate their respective project developments with national multisectoral working groups, task forces and theme groups that are involved with the development of national HIV/AIDS responses.

In the second project year, emphasis will be placed on reinforcement of the advocacy campaign messages at the national level, coaching, training and monitoring national programme developments, and profiling emerging good practices, if any are identified.

The regional project team will also encourage wider scope of project applications through combined regional and national approaches, as envisioned in the project idea endorsed by MOU countries for improved responses to drug related transmission of HIV in prison settings.