Noreen M' Huni

1
Outcomes of the East Southern Africa Regional
Inter-Agency Task Team (RIATT) Childrens
Conference in Dar-es-Salaam

• By
• Noreen M. Huni
• 6th October, 2008
• Dublin

2
Situation in the Region

• Greater political and financial attention,
  considerable progress towards achieving universal
  access to prevention, treatment, care and support
  for children living with and affected by HIV and
  AIDS.
• Providing antiretroviral treatment for children,
• Preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV
  and
• Supporting the care of orphans and vulnerable
  children, especially through strengthening
  family-centred and community-based responses.

3
Situation in the Region continued

• 1.8 million children are living with HIV
• 11.4 million children under 18 have lost one or
  both parents to AIDS.
• Increased child mortality rates due to HIV
• AIDS - leading cause of death among children
  younger than five years in six countries, all in
  East and Southern Africa.
• Families available, but weakened.

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RIATT - East and Southern Africa Overview

• February 2006 Global Partners Forums
  recommendation of establishing regional task
  teams.
• October 2006 The East and Southern Africa
  Regional Inter Agency Task Team (RIATT) was
  formed - 23 organizations.
• Strives to build consensus around a regional
  strategy for children affected by HIV/AIDS and
  conduct ongoing research in the region.
• Focus resource tracking, social protection,
  advocacy, regional engagement and social
  innovation.
• The conference results culminate from the past
  one and half years RIATT led work in the region.

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Collectively reviewed progress and evidence for
action needed to scale up the response to
children affected by HIV and AIDS.
260 delegates. Historic nature of children and
older carers participation
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Recommendations 4 Critical Areas for Urgent
Action for Scaling Up.Calling on Governments,
community faith based organizations,
international and regional bodies to
Keep Parents and Children Alive

Human Rights for Vulnerable Children

Increase Effectiveness of Services and Funding
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Keep Parents and Children Alive

• Increase resource allocation
• improve childrens access to early diagnosis,
• child appropriate treatment,
• child friendly voluntary counseling and testing,
  and
• supervisory and follow-up support for adherence.
• Expand the reach of vertical transmission
  prevention programmes for both women and men,
• adopt a family centered approach, including older
  carers, to testing, treatment, adherence,
  counseling and support programmes.

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Keep Parents and Children Alive Continued

• Link and integrate nutritional support into
  treatment programmes.
• Incorporate awareness of nutrition and positive
  living into support group activities for both
  adults and children.
• Conduct research to understand how children are
  infected with HIV beyond vertical transmission,
  such as through sexual abuse and caring for sick
  family members.

9
Strengthen Families and Communities as Units of
Care and Support

• Gear relevant support towards the family, rather
  than only orphaned children
• Majority of them are cared for within a family
  context.
• Institutional care should be considered a last
  resort.
• Cash transfers
• a viable means of strengthening families
  capacities to provide care and support
• should be aligned to national policies and
  legislation relating to poverty and children.
• Strengthen skills of child, youth and older
  caregivers with age and gender sensitive
  training, including life and parenting skills,
  and awareness on sexuality and HIV and AIDS.

10
Strengthen Families and Communities as Units of
Care and Support

• Create formal structures and systems for
  effective and meaningful child participation at
  national, district and community levels.
• Engage adolescent children in designing,
  implementing, and monitoring programmes that
  concern them.
• Support families with children under 5 through
  effective early childhood care and development
  programmes.
• Hire, train and adequately pay volunteers and
  community health care workers to increase
  accessibility of health systems to older carers
  and children, and linking them to needed
  services.

11
Increase Effectiveness of Services and Funding

• Align all responses with
• National AIDS Plans and
• National Plans of Action on Orphans and
  Vulnerable Children
• at all levels of government and ensure regional
  responses are aligned with plans of regional
  bodies.
• Ensure vulnerable children are included in
  national development and sectoral plans.

12
Increase Effectiveness of Services and Funding

• Improve coordination between ministries and all
  key stakeholders providing services to children
  at all levels.
• Integrate social protection policies and plans
  into national development policies and plans.
• Strengthen national social welfare systems, with
  a focus on care and protection of vulnerable
  children at all levels.

13
Increase Effectiveness of Services and Funding

• Strengthen monitoring and evaluation mechanisms
  and encourage effective resource tracking from
  national to community level.
• Update regularly country situation analyses on
  vulnerable children to keep up with realities on
  the ground.
• Improve regional and national data collection on
  vulnerable children and their carers by
  disaggregating by age and gender.
• Emphasize the importance of civil registration
  systems, particularly birth and death
  registration in the legal protection of children

14
Human Rights for Vulnerable Children

• Incorporate issues of gender inequality,
  violence, and abuse particularly of girls into
  HIV prevention policies and programmes.
• Reinforce the right to appropriate sexual and
  reproductive health education and information for
  children and older carers.
• Strengthen and increase the number of child
  friendly courts and increase resources available
  for legal aid for children and older carers.
• Strengthen legal frameworks designed to protect
  children and ensure their timely implementation.

15
Human Rights for Vulnerable Children

• Include all vulnerable children in legislation,
  programmes, plans, and delivery of services, not
  just children orphaned and affected by AIDS.
• Define vulnerability at national, rather than
  international level, with inputs from children,
  older carers, and community and faith based
  organizations, to ensure that no vulnerable
  children are excluded or stigmatized.

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Human Rights for Vulnerable Children

• Vulnerable children
• Orphaned
• Other children affected by HIV and AIDS
• Children affected by armed conflict, extreme
  poverty, and children with significant
  disabilities.
• Provide free good quality primary and secondary
  schooling and financing opportunities for
  tertiary level education, which include life
  skills.
• Support for transport, uniforms, and school
  materials must be provided.

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Conclusion

• Global leaders, the East Southern Region looks
  up to your intensified interest and support
• Policy and programming support
• For resource mobilization for the region focusing
  the four critical areas as prioritized by the
  regional stakeholders.

• Opportunity for inter-regional learning and
  dialogue

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The pain of the past does not have to be todays
reality. Iyanla Vanzant Yesterday I
Cried. Together we can all run with them out
of this painful past, and walk with them into the
future of tomorrow. Thank you!