USAID / Mozambique - Success Stories

Behavior change of the most intimate nature, as well as broader socio-cultural change, are fundamental to reducing the prevalence of HIV, deaths from AIDS, and the social and economic impacts of the disease. These are not changes that a government, nor a health ministry, is equipped to accomplish. The leadership of Mozambican civil society is thus key to successful HIV/AIDS prevention and mitigation, despite a general weakness of civil society organizations. In 2001, USAID/Mozambique and Mozambique's only foundation, the Foundation for Community Development (FDC), established a partnership to catalyze this leadership. Although FDC was plagued by internal weaknesses and had only a single, inexperienced staff member working on HIV/AIDS, the high quality and commitment of the organization's Board members, and their desire to do something about HIV/AIDS, especially targeting youth, gave USAID and FDC the confidence to establish a partnership that is redrawing the map for mobilizing civil society.

First, FDC's Board took some risky and innovative organizational decisions. A largely independent unit was created to develop and manage an HIV/AIDS program. This permitted recruitment of the best and brightest (unrestricted by FDC salary scales), who initially operated as a team but without hierarchy until a natural leadership structure emerged from within the ranks. An advisory body was created to oversee the Unit, composed of committed and responsible individuals from the Ministry of Health and the private sector. The Unit was tasked with developing a strategy for FDC's HIV/AIDS efforts. USAID financed short-term training programs in prevention, care, and economic and social impacts of the epidemic, giving the Unit the means to manage its own strategy development process.

Once a strategy was approved, daily hands-on collaboration was sought between a highly experienced USAID project manager and the fledgling Unit. This has proved to be a model in cooperation, with both institutions constantly drawing on the others' resources to advance ideas, to think through implementation, and to get the work done effectively.

The HIV/AIDS Unit itself then continued to innovate. The Unit's staff recruitment succeeded because, after drawing the very best people-those who combined commitment and spirit with strong analytic and interpersonal skills- available in an all sectors of society, it then allowed each to define how he or she could best contribute to the team. This, coupled with a Mozambican-led team building process, has rapidly brought the Unit to a level of competence well beyond expectations.

A network of technical assistance relationships was sought, identifying candidates with different types of expertise both within Mozambique and in other countries who continue to make contributions to the FDC program as activities, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Mozambique, evolve.

A process of soliciting grant proposals from community-based organizations of all kinds for HIV/AIDS prevention and mitigation has created a web of interlocking, mutually-reinforcing, activities that can reach disparate populations within a defined geographic area. Based on this process, the Unit is introducing a parallel activity to improve the capacity of Mozambican civil society organizations to expand the area and scale up the intensity of HIV/AIDS programming.

More broadly, FDC has decided to build the training and organizational development expertise that can help Mozambican NGOs become more effective and solid.

Combined with USAID financial and technical assistance, these elements have contributed to creating a truly Mozambican, truly community-based approach to HIV/AIDS prevention. Equally as important, they have set the stage for a greater range of Mozambican civil society organizations to begin to deliver palpable people-level results related to HIV/AIDS prevention and mitigation.

USAID/ Mozambique- Success Stories