Assessing the impact of capacity building for HIV activists in Europe and Central Asia

ABSTRACT

STEP-UP is a capacity building and training programme for HIV community activists in Europe and Central Asia, led by the European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG). The programme aims to empower a new cohort of HIV activists each year to engage more deeply in HIV activism at local and national levels addressing key themes such as HIV treatment literacy, prevention technologies, living with HIV, project development, clinical trials, patient participation, advocacy and policy landscapes. The expected outcome of the project is that trainees become activists with knowledge of both policy and science who advocate for change to policy and or practice. To assess the impact of the programme on individual graduates, their organisations and the communities they work with, EATG conducted an evaluation of the programme for the period of 2013–2017. The methods used during the assessment were: a desk review of information about the programme; interviews with implementers and trainees; a focus group with trainees; inputs from national and regional networks, activists and references given by trainees; and an online survey of trainees. This article evaluates the lessons learnt and forms a set of recommendations to implement in the design of future editions of STEP-UP.

KEYWORDS:

• Community
• training
• activists
• capacity-building
• Europe/Central Asia

Acknowledgements

EATG acknowledges that neither Gilead Sciences Europe Ltd nor ViiV Healthcare Europe Ltd have had any control or input into the structure or content of the initiative. EATG acknowledges all of the STEP UP participants invloved in all of the cycles, everyone involved in the design, development and implementation of STEP-UP and those involved in the impact assessment (Table 5).

Table 5. Acknowledgements.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This initiative has been independently developed by EATG and was made possible through sponsorship from Gilead Sciences Europe Ltd under grant agreement 02049 and ViiV Healthcare Europe Ltd.