By Bob Huff
December 2004
Introduction
The 3rd International Community TB/HIV Workshop was held in Paris from October 26-29, 2004. Participants were nominated by organizations and networks from all regions. From 229 applicants the Advisory Committee — Beverley Figaji (Namibia), Ezio Santos Filho (Brazil), Pervaiz Tufail (Pakistan) and Wan Yanhai (China) — selected 40 persons to attend the Workshop. Additional participants came from AIDES, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG)/European Community Advisory Board (ECAB), Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), Open Society Institute (OSI), the Stop TB Partnership Secretariat, TAG, UNAIDS and WHO.
Workshop participants came from Argentina, Belarus, Bolivia, Brazil, Cambodia, Cameroon, China, Ecuador, Estonia, Ethiopia, France, Georgia, Greece, India, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Malawi, Mexico, Namibia, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Romania, Russia, Switzerland, Tanzania, Uganda, Ukraine, the United States, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
The main goal of the meeting was to develop ideas for national, regional and global advocacy responses to the TB/HIV epidemics. Half the participants had submitted letters of intent to Open Society Institute (OSI) for the first round of TB/HIV advocacy grants prior to the Paris workshop. Subsequently, they developed revised proposals for country-level TB/HIV advocacy and submitted them to OSI for Advisory Committee review in mid-December. Successful applicants were notified in January 2005, when OSI also announced a second round of TB/HIV advocacy grants.
African, Asian, Eastern European, and Latin American regional breakout groups discussed national, regional, and global TB/HIV advocacy strategies and reported back on them in full-group strategy sessions.
Strategies proposed by all groups
- Advocate aggressively with respect to TB/HIV at all levels
- Base activities on WHO guidelines for collaborative TB/HIV activities
- Create linkages with collaborative TB/HIV activities
- Implement GIPA – greater involvement of people living with HIV/AIDS Stress the advantage of partnerships
- Involve the media • Use list-serves to build networks