A technical support visit to AntiAIDS Association (Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic) took place on 2 – 6 April, 2012. The visit has been conducted by Slava Kushakov and Dmytro Bielon.
Experts from Ukraine held meetings with the Secretariat of AntiAIDS Association, headed by Executive Director Chinara Bakirova. Meetings with other representatives from local and international representatives and stakeholders (UNDP Implementation Unit of the Global Fund Grants in Kyrgyz Republic, Local Fund Agent and others) took place as a part of the visit as well.
The main aim of this visit was to analyse the capacity assessment report of AntiAIDS Association and suggest technical support activities needed to strengthen the capacity of the organisation to implement the project funded by the Global Fund in Kyrgyz Republic. Besides, an attention of Ukrainian experts was paid to the development of programmatic, administrative and financial spheres of AntiAIDS Association as one of implementing partners of the project funded by the Global Fund.
The key point of the visit was the participation of representatives of Ukraine in general meeting of AntiAIDS Association founders, where they had possibility to highlight the preliminary results of the visit, to share their project implementation experience and to provide the answers to the questions.

In February-March 2012 TS Hub Kiev delivered technical assistance to International HIV/AIDS Alliance in India to introduce SyrEx software and adapt in for the country. On 1-2 March, 2012 in the frameworks of CAHR programme, experts from Ukraine Maria Samko and Vasyl Borschov introduced SyrEx software to 12 representatives from partner organisations of the Alliance India.
The two-days training organised by International HIV/AIDS Alliance in India that took place New Dehli was interactive and practical. Participants were trying to fill in the actual reporting forms with the list of indicators used in CAHR Project trying out all functions and reports available in SyrEx.
The overall feedback on the training was very positive and participants were looking forward to start using SyrEx in their daily work. One of the participants reflected in the evaluation form: "The workshop was easy and flexible. The practice sessions of the SyrEx software were the most useful ones. The participatory methods had been very helpful. Practicals were good and helped in learning. The software will be helpful in report collection and data management."

The workshop "Employment of active drug users in harm reduction projects" organised by KANCO took place on February 21-24, 2012 in Nairobi, Kenya and was facilitated by Konstantin Lezhentsev, TS Hub Kiev in the frameworks of CAHR programme. Involvement of people who use drugs in harm reduction programmes is the key principle of effecting HIV prevention intervention among vulnerable population. The workshop that gathered outreach workers, outreach teams' supervisors and project coordinators raised important issues related to the employment of people who use drugs in harm reduction projects. Such as advantages and disadvantages of drug users' employment, monitoring and evaluation of the effectiveness of their work, development of organisational policy towards drug users' employment and effective human resource management. Specific focus was made on describing Ukrainian and international experience of organisations that employ people who use drugs as their staff members. The key output of the workshop was the positive change in the attitude of participants towards employment of active drug users in harm reduction programmes. Participants also had an opportunity to discuss the structure and contents of the future publication on employment of active drug users in harm reduction projects that may serve as guidelines for practitioners working in the area of HIV prevention among people who use drugs.

From 9th to 13th of January 2012, Alliance Regional Technical Support Hub Kiev (TS Hub Kiev) provided technical support on Monitoring and Evaluation to Indonesian CAHR partner Rumah Cemara. During the visit the experts from Ukraine assessed monitoring and evaluation systems of Rumah Cemara and partner organisations implementing harm reduction projects in Indonesia. The aim of the visit was to identify what improvements can be made in monitoring and evaluation system and provide further recommendations.
Recommendations provided by consultants included suggestions on improvement of clients' registration system and Rumah Cemara received examples of clients' registration forms. Electronic database (SyrEx) has been presented to the organisation. And after having heard advantages and disadvantages of SyrEx database colleagues from Indonesia expressed their interest to adopt the database for organisations in their country. Adaptation action points have been discussed during the visit and TS Hub Kiev will start an adaptation process in the nearest future.

On 21-25 November 2011 a Training of trainers "Harm Reduction and outreach among injecting and non-injecting drug users" took place in Nairobi, Kenya. Facilitated by Julia Zhitkova and Oksana Kosenko, the training was aimed to improve training skills of participants and raise their skills and knowledge on Harm Reduction and outreach.
A team of 22 future trainers from different parts of Kenya consisting of outreach workers, outreach supervisors, addiction counsellors and managers from non-governmental organizations providing outreach services to vulnerable population received skills and knowledge that will build their capacity to conduct further trainings of outreach workers on a local level.
Training participants were very motivated to learn from Ukrainian experts and they demonstrated a great creativity in preparing their own sessions. Despite the fact that participatory learning approach was new to most of participants, they practised in developing their sessions using different participatory methods such as group work, brainstorming, ice-breakers, energisers and others which they are going to employ in their training practice.

Technical support visit to Kenya took place on November 1-10, 2011 and was conducted by Lyudmila Dmitriieva and Marina Braga (Alliance Ukraine Consultancy) who assisted KANCO, Kenya in conducting capacity needs assessment of local organisations and facilitating the workshop for their partners.
The aim of the visit was to prepare organisations to launch Harm Reduction projects. The team from Ukraine together with staff members from KANCO visited organisations in Nairobi, Mombasa, Malindi and Ukunda, met their staff and clients to assess their technical support needs and understand how system and procedures employed by organisations at this moment could be improved to start Harm Reduction projects.
During the workshop that took place on November 8-9 in Mombasa, participants received a feedback on capacity needs assessment results. It helped them to understand how to improve an overall management, administration and monitoring in their organisations. Individual sessions with workshop participants gave an opportunity to provide the feedback on project proposals submitted to KANCO and answer the questions on their finalisation.
Ms. Dmitriieva presented monitoring and evaluation system used by Ukrainian projects and facilitated a discussion on how M&E system in Kenyan NGOs could be improved based on experience of Ukrainian organisations. Participants were particularly interested in developing a unique clients' coding and introducing SyrEx database that may help organisations to calculate clients' coverage more accurately.

31 October – 04 November 2011 a visit on horizontal experience exchange in the sphere of technical assistance (TA) in Ukraine and its region took place.
Alliance Ukraine and Hub hosted their colleagues from Alliance India (Joydeep Sen, Manager: Technical Support Hub, and Shaleen Rakesh, Director: Technical Support India HIV/AIDS Alliance). In the result of this visit the guests had the opportunity to see the functioning of TA system, the development of skills in providing the services, the systems of resource centers, designing of innovative projects, operational research implementation, and the spread of the best practices in Alliance Ukraine.
Together with the representatives of Alliance Ukraine the colleagues from Alliance India analyzed not only HUB operational manual in TA, providing its quality, they also discussed the perspectives of collaboration in the international projects on TA to grantees GFTAM, the potential development on USAID means, organization of training exchange between Ukraine and India in the sphere of AIDS-TB, mobilization of WSW communities, STI, sexual and reproductive health services.

The first review and re-planning meeting of CAHR partners took place on October 17-21 in Kiev and has been hosted by the International HIV/AIDS Alliance in Ukraine. The meeting was dedicated to summing up the temporary results of the project and to planning of its future events. One of its most important aims was the experience exchange in the sphere of harm reduction. The participants of the meeting visited syringe exchange points, outpatient clinics, community centres for injection drug users and sex workers, pharmacists’ etc. During these site visits the participants had the opportunity not only to communicate with the clients but to watch the work of the volunteers and the staff as well. The meeting gathered partners from Malaysia, India, Indonesia, India, Ukraine and the UK. That was the first opportunity for partners from different countries to meet, share their ideas as a part of this multi-country project.
The participants of the meeting are:

• Anton Mulyana, Rumah Cemara, Indonesia
• Bibi Mbete, KANCO, Kenya
• Charanjit Sharma, Alliance India
• Jenithaa Santhirasekaran, Malaysian AIDS Council, Malaysia
• Sonal Mehta, Alliance India
• Ann Fordham, International Drug Policy Consortium
• Anton Ofield-Kerr, Alliance Secretariat
• Enrique Restoy, Alliance Secretariat
• Georgina Kane, Alliance Secretariat
• Helen Parry, Alliance Secretariat
• Simon Mollison, Alliance Secretariat
• Susie McLean, Alliance Secretariat
• Slava Kushakov, CAHR Management Unit
• Tetiana Deshko, CAHR Management Unit
• Marina Braga, Alliance Ukraine Consultancy

On 10-12 October 2011 in Moscow, Russia, the International Forum "Millennium Development Goal 6 in Eastern Europe and Central Asia" took place.
Representatives of governments, scientific community and civil society participated in the Forum. Anna Dovbakh was the Regional Technical Support Hub representative. Besides, the Executive Director of International HIV/AIDS Alliance Alvaro Bermejo was present and made a presentation about MARPs in the region.
Representatives of the Russian authorities, foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and the President's assistant Arkadiy Dvorkovich, in their speeches highlighted Russia's desire to become one of the main donors of the response to HIV/AIDS epidemic. Also, the decision of the Russian government to allocate 500 millions USD for RUSAID (Russian International Development Agency) creation was sounded.
During the session on consolidation of efforts of the public organizations, the next MDG summit was appointed on September 2013.
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Alliance Technical Support Hub together with KANCO, partner organisation from Kenya organised and conducted a workshop to develop a package for HIV prevention services for drug users. The workshop that took place in Nairobi on September 27 – 29 was facilitated by Konstantin Lezhentsev and Marina Braga. 11 participants from local NGOs got acquainted with Harm Reduction principles, methods and approaches of HIV prevention services delivery to drug users and designed a framework for needles and syringes exchange programme that is going to start in December 2011.  

20-22 September 2011 in Mauritius, Port – Luis, the 2nd Conference on Harm Reduction: Towards a Client Centred Approach was held. It was organized by CUT (Collectif Urgence Toxida) and gathered NGOs and GOs from the Indian Ocean region and some African countries such as Kenya and Morocco. Experience of Mauritian organisations, which have been implementing Harm reduction programmes starting from 2006, was widely presented there. Alliance Technical Support Hub assisted in organising the visit for representatives from Kenya to attend the Conference and to do a study tour visit. 

On 22-24 August 2011, in Irpin, Ukraine, regional consultancy "Community systems strengthening for key affected groups in Central Asia and Eastern Europe region". The meeting was organized by GFATM, EHRN, ECUO and International HIV/AIDS Alliance in Ukraine. Regional Technical Support HUB also participated in the organization and supported the event financially. Representatives of IDU, MSM and PLHA communities, whose national organizations are able and planning to apply for GFATM Round 11, were invited to the meeting together with the experts from international and UN agencies. Altogether, consultancy meeting was attended by 48 representatives and experts from 10 countries of the region. The primary objective of this consultancy was providing technical assistance to the participants on including CSS component in the Proposals to GFATM Round 11.
Consultation was organized in the form of group work of the representatives of organizations from Eastern Europe and Central Asia countries and the representatives of regional ones. Each team had an expert from international organization (such as UN, WHO, GIZ) or from one of the countries, that have had successful experience of including CSS in the previous GFATM Proposals (Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan). So, the accent was made both on quality preparation of CSS components and on coordination of the community organizations on the national level. On the links below you can find presentations about approaches and methods, used in Ukraine, to mobilize the MSM / LGBT community, and about the process of preparation to apply for GFATM.
Allince best practice on community mobilisation
Methods and dynamics of mobilization...

Billy Pick, USAID

Richard Needle, Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator

During the presentation "PEPFAR's approach to implementation science"

Leland Zhijun, CDC, China, and Kostyantyn Dumchev, CDC, Ukraine.