End of Support Evaluation of the Government of Sweden Support of the SADC HIV and AIDS Programme 2010-2016 (SADC December 2017 – May 2018)
Duration: December 2017 – May 2018
Description of the Project: The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is a Regional Economic Community of fifteen Member States. The SADC region acknowledged the negative impact of HIV and AIDS on social and economic development of the region and deliberately agreed to respond to the challenges posed by the epidemic. In order to facilitate implementation of the regional, continental and global commitments, the SADC Secretariat facilitated the development of a SADC-wide overarching policy document to guide development of HIV programmes in the Member States. This document is referred to as the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP, 2004). The RISDP has been revised in 2015 to take on board other important emerging issues. The social sector of the SADC Secretariat facilitated the development of regional HIV and AIDS Strategies to operationalize implementation of HIV and AIDS commitments at all levels. In order to ensure that implementation of HIV and AIDS responses is sustained, the SADC region established an HIV and AIDS Unit in 2003. The Unit has facilitated the implementation of the regional HIV and AIDS programmes through the development of regional strategies, the current and latest Strategy covering the period 2010–2015.
Tasks: Data was physically collected from the following SADC member states; Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Eswatini and Tanzania. MDS carried out the evaluation design, data collection, preparation of report, and presentation to regional technical advisory group. In the report, the team established the extent to which planned activities were implemented and outputs articulated in the results chain; determined the extent to which expected outcomes were realised; determined whether activities implemented were addressing prevailing regional priorities; identified and documented implementation bottlenecks and how they were addressed; assessed the level and appropriateness of stakeholder involvement in the implementation of the Business Plan; reviewed adherence by the HIV and AIDS Unit to the Business Plan in terms of development and implementation of annual operational work plans aligned to the Regional Strategy and reporting on a semi-annual and annual basis; documented lessons learned during implementation of the Business Plan; assessed the extent to which Member States have adopted the Regional Policies, Frameworks and Guidelines that have been approved through the
SADC structures; and made appropriate recommendations on the basis of in-depth analysis of all relevant issues.