Informing policy and programme decisions for scaling up the PMTCT and paediatric HIV response through joint technical...

In 2005, due to slow global progress in the scale-up of prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) and paediatric HIV programmes, the Inter-agency Task Team (IATT) on the Prevention of HIV infection among Pregnant Women, Mothers, and their Children initiated joint technical missions (JTMs) to countries of high HIV disease burden. The JTMs were intended to galvanize country actions for a more comprehensive response to PMTCT and paediatric HIV by bringing national and global stakeholders together to review national policies and programmes and develop country-specific recommendations for accelerating scale-up. Between 2005 and 2010, the IATT conducted JTMs in 18 low- and middle-income countries. In 2007, to assess the role played by the missions, a review in the first eight countries (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, India, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia) that hosted JTMs was undertaken. Country progress was assessed through desk review and key informant interviews. For each country, documents reviewed included JTM reports, baseline data for PMTCT and paediatric HIV care and treatment, and 2004 to 2007 trend data on key PMTCT and paediatric HIV indicators. Drawing upon the findings, this paper posits that JTMs contributed to national scale-up of PMTCT and paediatric HIV programmes through strengthening governance and co-ordination mechanisms for the programmes, promoting enabling policy environments, and supporting the development of national scale-up plans, which have been critical for leveraging additional financial resources for scale-up. Although the impact of the JTMs could be enhanced through greater follow-up and continued targeted assistance in technical areas such as infant and young child feeding, community-based programming and supply chain management, findings indicate that the JTMs are a useful mechanism for informing policy and programme decisions necessary for scaling up PMTCT and paediatric HIV responses. Moreover, by bringing stakeholders together around unified action plans, the JTMs created a platform for common action-a key tenet of the 'Three Ones' principles for effective HIV/AIDS responses.