Futures Group works at the forefront of global efforts to combat the epidemic of HIV and AIDS. Each component of our multipronged strategy is essential to scaling up HIV programs and best practices.

Our approach focuses on

• Encouraging effective leadership across sectors
• Ensuring efficient and equitable resource allocation and use
• Promoting evidence-based decisionmaking
• Identifying and removing operational barriers to program implementation

Our flagship program, the USAID | Health Policy Initiative (HPI), Task Order 1, serves as the primary mechanism for supporting USAID’s core-funded HIV activities in policy dialogue and implementation around the world and builds on the landmark work of its predecessor, the POLICY II Project.

Empowering change agents through policy and advocacy. Building advocacy skills has been a vital part of Futures Group’s extensive engagement with HIV and AIDS. An important aspect of our work has been to establish concrete partnerships with a wide range of organizations.

Our HIV and AIDS Policy and Advocacy Partnerships
• UNAIDS
• WHO
• The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria
• Civil society networks (global, regional, and national)
• Private sector partners
• Networks of faith-based organizations

Reducing stigma and discrimination has been an integral component of our global advocacy efforts. We have successfully focused on enabling civil society—especially for persons living with HIV and affected populations—to participate effectively in policy dialogue at the national level in Kenya, Ukraine, and elsewhere. Our work in Kenya under the decade-long, DFID-funded HIV and AIDS Prevention and Care project (HAPAC) illustrates this approach well. HAPAC successfully met its ambitious goal of supporting implementation of the Kenyan National AIDS Strategic Plan by collaborating with civil society, the government, and international donors. Notably, the project improved coordination and management of the national response, increased access to services, and harmonized stakeholder coordination.

The Action for West Africa Region Project (AWARE-HIV/AIDS) and the current follow-on (AWARE II), have focused on developing capacity, strengthening systems, building partnerships, and leveraging funding from other donors to enhance the regional response. Under AWARE-HIV/AIDS, Futures Group and its partners led in building a broad constituency base for improved policies, procedures, and norms at national and regional levels. AWARE-HIV/AIDS updated information on the HIV political and legal landscape and developed a regional policy agenda with stakeholders to outline a strategy for change. In the policy arena, AWARE-HIV/AIDS achieved the adoption of a national HIV “model law” as a West African template for the development of national HIV laws. Subsequently, HIV laws were adopted and implemented in 10 countries throughout the region.

Similarly, in Ukraine under the USAID | HIV and AIDS Service Capacity Project, we are working with partners in the public and private sectors to identify and remove or mitigate policy barriers and expand access to high-quality HIV prevention, diagnosis, treatment, care, and support services for people living with HIV and at-risk individuals. Futures Group has also led innovative HIV programs in the Asia-Pacific region, including managing policy and advocacy work in China, Indonesia, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Vietnam. We were instrumental in launching USAID’s country-level HIV policy programs in China, Cambodia, Nepal, and Vietnam, and have developed and scaled up effective, collaborative approaches to regional initiatives, such as the Analysis and Advocacy (A²) Project.

The Central American Regional AIDS Program, known as PASCA, has contributed greatly to addressing stigma and discrimination and improving the regional policy environment for implementing HIV policies and programs. Under PASCA the Futures Group team has focused on policy dialogue, public awareness, and NGO strengthening; providing technical assistance in HIV/AIDS planning; and helping ensure the dissemination of relevant data to improve the policy environment.

Improving patient data and health outcomes. Futures Group supports HIV care and treatment providers worldwide in collecting and using data for improved outcomes. Our strategy is to provide a set of highly configurable tools with comprehensive reporting capability as freely available solutions to HIV/AIDS clinics and hospitals in resource-poor countries.

IQCare in the Spotlight
IQCare is a comprehensive data capture and reporting system with patient management tools designed to measure patient outcomes. IQCare helps clinics collect clean and accurate patient data and provides flexible reporting leading to enhanced data use and analysis. Over 75 clinics in four countries—Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda—currently use IQCare.

Using these tools, the Futures Group team builds capacity at local partner treatment facilities for developing strong patient monitoring and management systems that collect and track strategic information. Under the AIDSRelief Project, Futures Group uses training modules, technical assistance, and continuous quality assurance to promote a data-use culture at local partner treatment facilities. By collecting strategic information, the providers are able to offer higher-quality HIV care and treatment, chronic disease management, and viral resistance monitoring.

Futures Group’s data capturing and reporting tools under IQSolutions include IQCare, IQChart, IQTools, IQTraining, IQReports, and IQGeo. The requirements for these products are driven by the needs of the field and developed through collaboration with local experts and practical field experience. In total, we have deployed IQSolutions systems in over 200 hospitals, clinics, and satellite locations throughout Africa and the Caribbean.

Changing behaviors and improving access. Futures Group’s vision for health promotion and behavior change communication is to empower high-risk, underserved populations with the information, motivation, and access needed to improve their well-being through informed choices on health products and services from commercial and public outlets.

Futures Group, in collaboration with the Asia Harm Reduction Network, is implementing a World Bank-funded project to develop evidence- and rights-based strategies for policy, advocacy, and communications in Afghanistan, in line with public health best practices. The project is a key component of the broader Afghanistan HIV/AIDS Prevention Project. Futures Group is supporting the national government in increasing HIV prevention knowledge and reducing HIV-related stigma among key audiences, such as youth, women, migrant workers, refugees, and returnees. We also assist civil society organizations in planning and carrying out their own advocacy and communication activities.

With KfW funding in Niger, Futures Group launched an integrated communication program with information on using condoms for dual protection against HIV and unwanted pregnancies. The project developed advocacy and awareness-raising campaigns to spread information and build support for the prevention of HIV and unwanted pregnancies. The campaigns have used multiple channels, such as radio, TV, and film, as well as interactive community theater.

In China our team successfully designed and implemented programs that encouraged behavior change and promoted condom use as a means of reducing HIV transmission among high-risk groups under HAPAC. Programs included mass media campaigns, interventions in entertainment establishments, work with high-risk communities, workplace interventions, and training and capacity-building workshops, as well as increasing the accessibility of condoms.

Strategic information for practical application. Since 1979 Futures Group has led the way in using data for decisionmaking. For example, the Data Analysis and Triangulation for Evaluation (DATE) project promotes using data synthesis and triangulation to inform decisionmaking for HIV sexual transmission prevention priorities in Nigeria that are in line with its wider HIV/AIDS programming and policy objectives. DATE’s widely participative strategy actively involves key stakeholders. It has also provided significant formal capacity building on triangulation and secondary analysis of prevention data to the Nigerian government, including the National Agency for the Control of AIDS, and U.S. government implementing partners.

Under Phase II of the MEASURE Evaluation project, we developed the data demand and information use (DDIU) conceptual framework and tools, which can be used to aid policymakers and stakeholders in designing decisionmaking strategies that are viable, sustainable, and evidence based. Futures Group has applied DDIU concepts and tools globally, such as in developing a series of global information system (GIS) databases and maps depicting the situation of orphans and vulnerable children in 12 countries to inform HIV/AIDS programming and policymaking, conducting palliative care public health evaluations in Africa, and designing TB/HIV integration and adherence programs.

In South Africa, Futures Group, in collaboration with local partners, has conducted an HIV sero-prevalence and knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and practices (KABP) study in 22 universities and technical colleges to assess the impact of the HIV epidemic on the higher education sector. Data analysis is ongoing, and final reports are expected before the end of 2009.