Analysis by ICRW stigma expert Laura Nyblade and ICRW partner Virginia Bond shows that patients who exhibit visible TB symptoms often face stigmatizing behavior similar to that faced by people with HIV, such as being ostracized, publicly humiliated and shunned by family and friends.EXPLORE OUR WORK
Adolescence | HIV and AIDS | Food Security & Nutrition| Economic Development | Reproductive Health | Violence against Women | Research Areas
HIV/AIDS PROJECTS
CARE-Balkans
ICRW will build on lessons learned from the ISOFI project as it partners with CARE to reduce gender-based violence in the Balkans.
Violence against women and girls is a grave social and human rights concern affecting nearly all societies. A culture of violence, particularly against women, has become pervasive in the western Balkans since the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. Young men in particular are pressured from an early age to exhibit typically "manly" characteristics, which are often aggressive and even violent. Traditional patriarchal customs and norms foster silence at the community level regarding violence experienced by women.
This three-year program will use action research to clarify the experience, attitudes and behavior of young men related to gender-based violence in the western Balkans (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia), and measure impact of interventions on male attitudes and behavior relating to violence.
For more information, please contact Sarah Degnan Kambou.
Communities Responding to the HIV/AIDS Epidemic (CORE) Initiative
The Communities Responding to the HIV/AIDS Epidemic (CORE) Initiative, funded by USAID, supports an inspired, effective and inclusive response to the causes and consequences of HIV and AIDS by strengthening the capacity of community and faith-based groups. Through a global network of partners, the CORE Initiative provides technical support and organizational development to community- and faith-based organizations and other USAID partners to design, implement and evaluate comprehensive community HIV/AIDS programming.
The main approach of the CORE Initiative is to leverage existing efforts while catalyzing and encouraging new efforts through diverse and innovative partnerships in the areas of community-based prevention, stigma reduction, and care and support to people living with HIV and AIDS and their families.
Leading this initiative is CARE International in partnership with ICRW; the World Council of Churches (WCC); the International HIV/AIDS Alliance; and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs (CCP).
For more information, please contact Sarah Kambou.
Evaluating Civil Society Participation in the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria
Civil society participation increasingly is recognized as a cornerstone of good governance in global institutions. Yet evidence showing the extent to which this participation is effective or successful is lacking.
To help close this gap, ICRW — through funding from the Ford Foundation — has analyzed civil society participation in the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), a global institution structured to encourage direct civil society involvement in its governance and decision making. In addition to collecting evidence, ICRW recommended how to strengthen civil society participation in the Global Fund and better integrate gender issues in the Fund’s agenda.
Read the report on improving the Global Fund and the companion report which explores lessons that can be applied to other international institutions.
For more information, please contact Nata Duvvury.
Gender Assessments of National Responses to AIDS
Women are at the forefront of the AIDS epidemic. In response, national policy-makers increasingly are incorporating gender into HIV/AIDS programming.
This project will conduct a gender review and assessment of country responses to AIDS for the UNAIDS Program Coordinating Board to provide practical guidance on what works and what is needed to more fully integrate gender into national programs.
In general, despite the availability of assessments and guidelines, few governments have costed, budgeted and implemented a truly gendered national response. As the overall consultant, ICRW will assess this knowledge-to-practice gap.
Through desk reviews and country assessments, ICRW will identify lessons learned in scaling-up gender to the national-level, and provide practical guidance on what works and what is needed for governments, donors, the U.N. system and civil society to scale up. The assessment is being conducted in collaboration with UNAIDS, UNDP, and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa.
For more information, please contact Sarah Degnan Kambou.
Funded by: UNAIDS
HIV/AIDS and Food Security
In much of sub-Saharan Africa, HIV/AIDS is crippling the livelihood systems of households—especially in rural communities, where nearly 85 percent of the population lives. The long-term effects of the epidemic have eroded the ability of households to produce food and other agricultural products, generate income, and care for and feed family members.
To address this problem, ICRW and Ugandan partners seek to improve household food security in rural communities hit by the AIDS epidemic by increasing collaboration between communities and HIV/AIDS, agriculture, and nutrition specialists. The central role of gender in household food security will be addressed in the design of all interventions.
For more information, please contact Jessica Ogden.
HIV/AIDS Monitor Project
The HIV/AIDS Monitor Project, which is coordinated by the Center for Global Development, aims to improve the ability of donor countries to respond effectively to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The project partners with local research institutions in four countries (Ethiopia, Mozambique, Uganda and Zambia) to examine the operations and impacts of three major funding initiatives: The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR); and the World Bank.
Through systematic research and analysis, coupled with complementary research and assessment at the global level, the project will strengthen the organization, management and delivery of foreign assistance to maximize its impact in supporting HIV/AIDS programs worldwide.
ICRW's role on the HIV/AIDS Monitor Project is to provide technical direction and assistance in conducting a gender analysis of the three funding mechanisms' operations in the four focus countries.
For more information, contact Jessica Ogden.
HORIZONS
ICRW is one of the collaborating institutions on HORIZONS, an operations research program designed to identify components of effective HIV/AIDS programs and policies; test potential solutions to problems in prevention, care, support and service delivery; and disseminate and use findings with a view toward replication and scaling-up of successful interventions. Directed by the Population Council, Horizons is comprised of a team of U.S.-based and international organizations assembled to design, implement and evaluate innovative intervention strategies.
For more information, please contact Tobey Nelson or Ellen Weiss.
Inner Spaces, Outer Faces Initiative (ISOFI) II
ICRW, in collaboration with CARE International, piloted the two-year Inner Spaces, Outer Faces Initiative (ISOFI), to create a methodology to address gender and sexuality constraints in reproductive health programming. The initiative focused specifically on HIV/AIDS programs that used community-based and participatory methodologies.
Implemented in India and Vietnam, the first phase provided a unique opportunity to evolve strategies for integrating gender and sexuality into reproductive health interventions. Emerging evidence from this pilot suggests that the experiences at personal and organizational levels are powerful and aid in identifying underlying issues of gender and sexuality.
ISOFI II gathers evidence on how to incorporate gender and sexuality into programming, focusing on organizational change within Care International. This knowledge will be disseminated to gender, sexuality and reproductive health research and program communities. The study is being conducted in Uttar Pradesh, India, involving one experimental site with intensive inputs and one control site, with pre- and post-measurement of selected gender, sexuality and health outcomes.
Read the report on the two-year initiative phase of ISOFI.
For more information, please contact Sarah Degnan Kambou or Deepmala Mahla.
Integrating Gender into Vaccine Trials
To date, most efforts to develop an AIDS vaccine have focused on the biological nature of fighting the virus. However, the only way to produce a successful vaccine is if enough women and men participate in vaccine trials. As such, it is important to begin exploring the social components of vaccine research to better understand participation patterns.
In this project, ICRW will provide technical support to the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), the Kenya AIDS Vaccine Initiative and a local research organization to study the impact of participation, focusing on gender and social vulnerabilities. The goal is to develop concrete and feasible interventions that enable both women and men to participate in all phases of clinical trials, reduce social harm and ensure universal access to future vaccines.
For more information, please contact Laura Nyblade.
Integrating TB and HIV Diagnosis, Treatment and Care from Facility to Community in Nampula Province, Mozambique
This CORE Initiative project, currently being implemented in Nampula Province, Mozambique, integrates tuberculosis (TB) and HIV diagnosis and treatment at the facility level. It also extends the system of care and support from the facility to the community. The community-based component of the study, which will include supporting adherence for both TB and HIV drugs, will be of special benefit to women, who often face barriers to obtaining treatment from health facilities. Efforts to combat HIV- and TB-related stigma should bolster community efforts to identify positive HIV and TB cases and increase the use of related services.
For more information, please contact Jessica Ogden.
Parliamentarians for Women's Health
ICRW, along with several key partner organizations, is leading a groundbreaking initiative in East and southern Africa. The project seeks to strengthen parliamentarians’ efforts to improve women’s and girls’ access to health services, including HIV and AIDS treatment, prevention and care.
The three-year project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will increase the parliamentarians’ skills and knowledge on these issues by providing technical assistance, facilitating their links to civil society, and helping to organize national and regional conferences.
The project – based in Botswana, Kenya, Namibia and Tanzania – partners with organizations in the field, including:
- Center for the Study of AIDS at the University of Pretoria (CSA);
- International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (ICW); and
- Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative (EGI).
More information about the project.
View the Parliamentarians for Women's Health Web site.
For more information, please contact Patricia Caffrey.
Prema Panduga: Festival of Love
ICRW — in collaboration with CARE India and sex workers' collectives — is leading a three-year project to reduce the risk of HIV among sex workers. Reducing HIV infection not only safeguards the health and well-being of sex workers and their clients, but slows the spread of HIV in the general population.
The project seeks to understand the factors that encourage people to sell sex and explores ways to mitigate the impact of HIV risks once people enter the sex trade. The findings will be used to inform policy at the local, national and international levels, with particular emphasis on reaching U.S. stakeholders, including members of Congress.
This participatory action research project, based in Andhra Pradesh, India, will use a community empowerment framework and harm reduction principles. The target population consists of sex workers who work in both street- and brothel-based settings.
The project will involve individuals who are new to sex work and those who have been sex workers for many years. This experience range will allow ICRW to better understand HIV-related risks throughout the life cycle of sex workers in the project sites. Given the epidemiological trends of HIV infection among high-risk groups in Asia, ICRW will include all sex workers, regardless of gender.
For more information please contact Sarah Degnan Kambou or Deepmala Mahla.
Property Rights and HIV/AIDS
Ownership and control over economic assets, such as housing and land, can protect women who are affected by HIV/AIDS from destitution. While there are a number of efforts to strengthen women's property and inheritance rights in many parts of the world, very few include consideration of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
ICRW is documenting the association between property rights and women's vulnerability in the context of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and analyzing legislation, policies and customary practices that can restrict women's property rights.
For more information, please contact Nata Duvvury.
Property Rights in South Africa and Uganda
A lack of secure property rights exacerbates women's vulnerabilities to HIV/AIDS and may be a risk factor for gender-based violence. ICRW and in-country partners are exploring these links with a qualitative research study in South Africa and Uganda on women's experiences with property ownership and access within the context of HIV/AIDS and domestic violence.
Evidence from the research will be used to inform local, municipal and national governments of the benefits associated with securing women's property rights as part of broader land reform measures.
For more information, please contact Hema Swaminathan.
Reducing HIV-related Stigma in Health Care Settings
ICRW, together with its partners the Institute for Development Studies (Hanoi) and the Horizons Project, is conducting a two-year operations research study to test the impact of two different interventions to reduce stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV and AIDS in the health care setting in Vietnam.
One intervention will address the fear of contagion and infection through casual contact by focusing on fear reduction, improved awareness and universal precautions. The other intervention will address this fear of contagion as well as addressing social stigma as manifested in blame and value judgments. In particular, the study will test what additional impact activities to reduce social stigma have over activities to increase awareness and reduce fear of contagion alone.
In the first year, the study will take place in 2 tuberculosis (TB) hospitals in the North (Haiphong and Quang Ninh). In the second year, USAID funds permitting, the intervention study will be implemented and evaluated in two hospitals in the south.
For more information, please contact Jessica Ogden.
Reducing Stigma in Vietnam
Continuing ICRW's groundbreaking work on AIDS-related stigma, this project — in partnership with the Institute for Social Development Studies (ISDS) — explores ways to reduce stigma in Vietnam.
The program focuses on implementing and evaluating two community-level stigma-reduction interventions, one in the north of the country and the other in the south. ICRW and ISDS also are coordinating with various partners and Vietnam's Central Commission for Ideology and Culture (CCIC) to develop a policy brief detailing how the press and other public information media should address HIV/AIDS-related issues in a non-stigmatizing manner.
Reducing Stigma in Vietnam, funded through PACT, is the third phase of a USAID-funded project to study and reduce stigma in Vietnam.
Understanding and Challenging HIV Stigma: Toolkit for Action |
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(1) Introduction and Module A |
For more information, please contact Laura Nyblade.
Reducing Women's and Girls' Vulnerability to HIV/AIDS by Ensuring their Property and Inheritance Rights
ICRW, in partnership with the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS (GCWA) and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), will examine the links between women's and girls' property and inheritance rights and their vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. In a new grants competition, eight organizations in sub-Saharan Africa have receive d $25,000 each to create a body of evidence that demonstrates effective programs to address links between HIV/AIDS and property rights.
Grants will support one-year projects implemented by nongovernmental organizations and others working at the community and institutional levels to:
- identify and strengthen promising interventions to improve women's realization of their property rights;
- document these models; and
- share the findings with a wide range of audiences, including international donor community and in-country program practitioners and policymakers.
Grantees have been selected among organizations in Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Project grantees include:
- Community Law Centre and Saartjie Baartman Centre for Women & Children (CLC), South Africa
- Grassroots Organizations Operating Together in Sisterhood (GROOTS), Kenya
- Kenya AIDS NGOs Consortium (KANCO), Kenya
- Ntengwe for Community Development Trust (NCD), Zimbabwe
- Rwanda Women's Network (RWN), Rwanda
- Women's Voice, Malawi
- Young Widows Advancement Program (YWAP), Kenya
- Zimbabwe Widows and Orphans Trust (ZWOT), Zimbabwe
For more information, please contact Nata Duvvury.
Stigma Reduction in Tanzania
ICRW is working with partner organizations to measure the impact of a community stigma-reduction program, implemented by Kimara Peer Educators and Health Promotors Trust. Kimara's program, the first of its kind in Tanzania, is seen as a model stigma-reduction program. A successful first phase of HIV-stigma indicator testing and validation is complete, and a second phase is in progress to test the stability of the indicators over time, as well as their ability to measure change.
By evaluating the program's impact and drawing on lessons learned, this project will help inform efforts to scale up stigma-reduction programs throughout Tanzania. Tested and validated stigma indicators also will allow others to evaluate the effectiveness of anti-stigma programs.
For more information, please contact Laura Nyblade.