Facilitating Gender Equity and Transformation

HIV Prevention
RESPOND provided long-term technical assistance in three Sub-Saharan African countries in the use of the Men As Partners (MAP®) approach to engage men in ongoing HIV prevention efforts. In Côte d’Ivoire, from 2008 to 2014, RESPOND built the capacity of such partners as Population Services International, the Ministère de l’Education Nationale, the Programme National de la Santé de la Reproduction, the Programme National de la Prise en Charge des Personnes Vivant avec le VIH, and the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation and its local affiliate, the Fondation Ariel Glaser. In Namibia, RESPOND collaborated with a local partner, LifeLine/ChildLine, to deepen the policy dialogue in the government about the role of traditional gender norms as a key driver of the HIV epidemic in the country. And from 2008 to 2011, RESPOND supported local organizations and the South African government to implement the MAP® Program, working primarily with youth and adult men to change harmful gender norms and practices.

GBV Prevention and Response
In three Sub-Saharan African countries, RESPOND used the MAP® approach to address gender norms that lead to gender-based violence (GBV) and to inadequate health system responses to GBV survivors. In Angola, in partnership with União Cristã Feminina (UCF [Christian Women’s Union]), a Young Women’s Christian Association member association, and the Fórum Juvenil da Apoio a Saúde e Prevenção da SIDA (FOJASSIDA [Youth Forum for Support for Health and AIDS Prevention]), RESPOND built the capacity of UCF and FOJASSIDA by training their HIV/GBV activists in gender and GBV and facilitated the design and implementation of an awareness-raising campaign on gender and GBV in Cazenga, a submunicipality of Luanda, from March to August 2013. From 2012 to 2014, RESPOND supported the Ministry of Public Health and the Fight Against AIDS in Burundi to strengthen GBV prevention and response efforts in two provinces. Finally, following political violence in Guinea in 2009, especially an incident in September 2009 when women and girls were raped by security forces, RESPOND supported follow-up services for survivors, strengthened local capacity for GBV prevention, and improved the health sector’s response to GBV.

Resources related to these country experiences are contained in this section.

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COPE, Men As Partners, and MAP are registered trademarks of EngenderHealth. SEED is a trademark of EngenderHealth.
Photo credits: M. Tuschman/EngenderHealth; A. Fiorente/EngenderHealth; C. Svingen/EngenderHealth.

This web site was made possible by the generous support of the American people through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), under the terms of the cooperative agreement GPO-A-000-08-00007-00. The information provided on this web site is not official U.S. Government information and does not represent the views or positions of the USAID or the U.S. Government.

The RESPOND Project Digital Archive, Version 2.0