Multi-stakeholder Collaboration in Controlling AIDS: The Andhra Pradesh Model

Governments, the world over, have been adopting multi-stakeholder collaboration to address major health issues like cancer, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. The preferred route has been the public-private partnership (PPP) with non-governmental and civil society organizations. The problem of AIDS, as it appears in India, does not raise any alarm bells among the common masses. Because AIDS is still an abstract issue to most people in India, their lives have still not been touched by the disease. In contrast, the central and state governments have put in place various policy and institutional mechanisms to address the issue. Unfortunately, donor agencies do not find the effort involved in funding, managing and evaluating community projects involving the voluntary organization worth their investment in time and effort. Realizing the gravity of epidemiological situation of HIV infection prevailing in the country, the government of India launched a National AIDS Control Programme in 1987. Presently, the programme is in its third phase. Since AIDS has no cure, the main objective of this project is to slow down the spread of HIV/AIDS infection through creation of awareness and aiming at behavioural change. This, it intends to do, with active collaboration of multiple stakeholders, both in public and private sectors.