Eexternal evaluation of NACO must be a participatory process

[Guest guest]

Dear Minister Dr. Ramadoss,

It was a pleasure to meet you at the reception of Dr. Piot in Delhi.

It is also with great pleasure that we write today, after reading the newspaper

articles announcing that you are calling for an independent, external

evaluation of the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO).

We would like to congratulate you for taking such an important step forward in

India's response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. This can only enhance the prestige

and credibility of NACO and GOI.

The outcome of an unbiased, independent assessment and review will enable us

to critically examine our responses to HIV/AIDS thus far, and reflect on our

vision and direction for the years and decades to come. There can only

be positive benefits in engaging in such a transparent review, from both a

policy and programmatic perspective.

We hope that you will ensure that the process of evaluation, though conducted by

external organizations, will be inclusive in nature. More specifically, we

hope that you will call for a participatory process, incorporating the inputs of

stakeholders who have worked with or been affected by the work of NACO. Such a

review must give precedence to the involvement of those groups, so that a

rigorous review is rooted in the realities affecting positive, affected and

vulnerable people and communities. Such measures must be prioritized in this

process to ensure that a review and assessment is effective and constructive.

If we may offer you any assistance in this process, please do not hesitate

to call. The Lawyers Collective HIV/AIDS Unit has been actively involved in

providing legal aid and allied services to positive and affected persons and

communities, and conducting extensive advocacy on HIV/AIDS, for a number of

years.

Our most recent endeavor, to draft India's first legislation on HIV/AIDS,

involved an intensive two-year consultative process with people who are

directly impacted by NACO's work on a daily basis, including but not limited

to HIV positive persons, various State AIDS Control Societies (SACS), vulnerable

communities including sex workers/MSM/IDUs, healthcare workers, women,

children, as well as persons from every major region of India.

Such inputs were invaluable to our understanding of the realities people

face in India, and were instrumental in the development of our legislation.

If these experiences or insights can be valuable to your review, we would be

happy to share them.

We feel that the civil society is in a position to give critical inputs

to the process, not only as objects of the evaluation, but as members of

an Evaluation Assessment Committee, and that they should be so included

in the process. We hope and trust that you will take steps to ensure the

involvement of civil society in the process as set out above.

Warm regards,

Anand Grover

Lawyers Collective

HIV/AIDS Unit

E-mail: <aidslaw2@...>