Introducing standardized indicators to assess HIV response in West and Central Africa
New indicators to improve the monitoring and evaluation of the education sector’s response to HIV epidemic have now been have been introduced in West and Central Africa.
UNESCO and a number of governments, agencies and the UNAIDS Inter-Agency Task Team (IATT) on Education have recently developed and tested a limited number of 15 internationally recognized indicators, which are recommended for use by countries, in particular for the integration within Education Management Information Systems (EMIS).
A regional training workshop organized by UNESCO’s Regional Office in Dakar took place from 3-5 December 2014 to train 30 senior technicians in charge of EMIS from Burundi, Cameroun, Chad, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Mali and Nigeria. They successfully strengthened their capacities to use the core indicators and planned for the production of quality data on education and HIV and AIDS.
Evidence-based response
“With these indicators we are in a much better position to assess the education sector’s response to HIV and AIDS. Before we didn’t have any standardized methods, which obviously made it much more difficult to have an evidence-based response in this area,” says Xavier Hospital, Regional Health Education Adviser in UNESCO’s Regional Office in Dakar.
Monitoring and evaluating the role of education in the response to the HIV epidemic is important for countries to improve the quality of their education sector policies and school-based programmes.
He adds that as the indicators had not previously been presented to ministries of education and other education stakeholders, let alone integrated into EMIS, which has left the region without standardized methods to acknowledge the education sector contribution to the HIV response.
The workshop managed to initiate the process of using the core global indicators in the sub-region.
Significant progress
The new indicators were pilot tested in Eastern and Southern Africa and the Caribbean. Countries involved in the pilot committed to incorporating some of them in their EMIS from 2014; significant progress has already been made in some countries such as Tanzania and Zambia and a roadmap has been agreed on by all SADC countries to use most indicators by the end of 2015. Experience shows that provision of technical support to ministries of education contributes to a smoother inclusion of indicators into EMIS.
Education plays a key role in improving the knowledge and personal skills that are essential for HIV prevention. In countries with a generalized HIV epidemic, the education sector also contributes to mitigating the impact of AIDS on students, education personnel, their families and communities. Monitoring and evaluating the role of education in the response to the HIV epidemic is important for countries to improve the quality of their education sector policies and school-based programmes.