Lessons and legacies. The final report of a grants program for HIV / AIDS prevention in Africa.

The US Agency for International development (USAID) HIV/AIDS Prevention in Africa (HAPA) project provided grants over the period 1989-92 to 5 US-based private voluntary organizations (PVO) and the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health to undertake 9 HIV/AIDS prevention projects in sub-Saharan Africa. At an average $290000 per project over the 2-year grants the HAPA project was one of USAIDs first efforts at the large-scale funding of PVOs to work on preventing HIV/AIDS. These funds were allocated as seed money to help the recipient groups establish technical expertise in HIV/AIDS prevention after which it was expected that follow-on funding would come from local USAID missions or other sources. Projects concentrated on education and motivation for behavior change and are summarized in an appendix. Lessons learned by grantees are documented in this report as a guide to future support for PVOs in HIV/AIDS programming. Field lessons in project planning design implementation management and sustainment are presented as well as experiences from PVO headquarters level and the technical advisory group. Recommendations for PVOs and the donor community to increase the effectiveness of NGO and PVO HIV/AIDS prevention efforts are finally offered.