Laos Country Program

Aims of the Laos Country Program

The aim of the Laos Country Program (CP) is to reduce the spread of HIV associated with injecting drug use among men and women by strengthening the capacity and will of government, communities and civil society organisations to reduce the harms associated with injecting drug use.

The aim is to have the following in place before the program concludes in 2014:

• A broad range of demand driven harm reduction services including, provision of IEC materials for drug users, their sexual partners and their families, infrastructure and drop-in centres to deliver services, peer outreach networks among different sub-groups of drug users including women and MSM, tincture of opium for long term treatment for opium and heroin users and referral mechanisms for drug users and their families to access primary and sexual health services.
• Effective high-level political support for harm reduction approaches within Laos ministries, local organisations and INGO partners able to mobilise and coordinate a genuinely multi-sectoral approach creating an enabling environment for harm reduction programs.
• It is envisaged that the Government of the Laos will have increased its funding of harm reduction services and additional donor support is mobilised for harm reduction activities to sustain the advances made under HAARP.
• The Government of Laos having sufficient capacity to manage, monitor and regulate the National Strategic Plan and has the multi-sectoral support to do so.
• Harm reduction training institutionalised in the national police and health training curriculums.

Objectives

The objectives of the Laos CP are:

• Improve coordination and collaboration in support of Laos harm reduction policies that prevent HIV among drug users.
• Increased technical and management capacity to deliver effective services and support to drug users.
• Increased awareness and understanding of drug use and HIV issues by policy makers to enhance responses.

The Laos CP will seek to build on the achievements and investments of the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) regional project, which has aimed to better respond to the epidemics related to injecting drug use by supporting the National Strategic Plan and is filling gaps in responses. SIDA support is scheduled to end at the end of 2009.

Implementing Partners

The Laos CP will work with the Laos National Commission for Drug Control and Supervision (LCDC), and Ministry of Health (MoH) through the Centre for HIV/AIDS/STI (CHAS) and Department of Curative Medicine. In line with HAARP's overall aims of harmonisation and alignment with national systems and adherence to the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, we will use existing capacity within both LCDC and MoH (CHAS and the Department of Curative Medicine)  for coordination and management of Laos CP.

In addition to the LCDC and CHAS the Lao PDR CP will collaborate with the Ministry of Public Security (MOPS), UNODC and WHO.

UNODC will be the lead agency and will coordinate the partners response. A head service Memorandum of Understanding will be signed between AusAID and UNODC to manage the program in Laos.

It is planned to initiate two pilot provincial Task Forces following provincial rapid assessments. These will endeavour to bring together government counterparts from different ministries particularly form the Provincial Drug Control and Supervision Commission (PCDC), the provincial Centres for HIV and AIDS (PCCA), other ministries and from civil society. The role of these Provincial Task Forces will be to initiate a dialogue between key stakeholders and develop services for injecting drug users in the province.

The National Task Force on HIV and Drug Use will provide governance to the Laos CP.  AusAID will participate in the Task Force, which will meet every six months to review the CP progress and approve all work plans and activities. The existing ToR for the Task force already meets the requirements of AusAID for project oversight.