Round-up of responses to SA’s new AIDS/TB plan

The involvement of civil society is a critical component of a workable plan.

By Staff writer

On Friday 31 March 2017 South Africa’s National Strategic Plan (NSP) for HIV, TB an STIs 2017 – 2022 was launched in Mangaung, Free State. However, as of noon on Monday 3 April the final plan has not yet been made public. Most commentary is thus based on almost-final versions of the plan and/or a summary of the plan published by the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC).

At the launch, Deputy President of South Africa and head of the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC), Cyril Ramaphosa, said that “this is a pivotal moment in our fight against the epidemics because, despite our successes, we need to significantly expand and accelerate our efforts.” He said that the new NSP “emphasises the need for leadership participation and accountability at all levels to achieve the 90-90-90 targets.”

“We should, at minimum,” said Ramaphosa, “reach the 90-90-90 targets for HIV and TB by 2020.” He said that  “this must be the commitment of government, business, labour and every formation within civil society.”

NSP not endorsed by TAC and SECTION27

On the night of March 30, lobby groups the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and SECTION27 released a joint media statement in which they said that they cannot endorse the NSP in its current form. They argued that the NSP falls short in four areas: lack of accountability, human resources, funding, and the NSP’s “weakness” on a number of specific issues – of which they identified access to condoms in schools and the decriminalization of sex work as key examples.

TAC and SECTION27 did however indicate that they would consider endorsing the NSP should certain additional implementation plans be developed and costed. Amongst others, they wish to see an addendum giving detailed guidance to provinces on NSP implementation, an addendum that sets out the additional human resources required to implement the interventions identified in the NSP, and a full costing of the NSP and a realistic assessment of where the needed funds will be found.

The two groups also indicated that they are “deeply concerned” by what they describe as the “ongoing governance crisis at SANAC”. “Serious questions about governance at SANAC remains unanswered despite various letters from TAC and meetings with key individuals,” the statement read. “We are particularly concerned by the lax way in which SANAC has handled conflicts of interest and the process of appointing a new CEO.”

Comment from MSF, RHAP, Sonke and others

Previously, writing on Spotlight, Julia Hill of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) argued that we need to take the NSP to local, community level otherwise we only have a “pie-in-the-sky document” which makes it difficult for communities most affected by HIV and TB to hold to account AIDS Council governance structures and government departments. National success, she says,  depends on smaller programmatic successes at district, sub-district, and service provision level. Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) standards must therefore be put in place at these system levels to ensure people are able to access services intended to lead to achievement. In this regard, she argued, the NSP falls short.

Russell Rensburg of The Rural Health Advocacy Project (RHAP), also writing on Spotlight,  pointed out that what makes a good plan is a plan that promotes equity and a plan that is informed by the people most affected. “A good plan is a plan that we know will be implemented due to robust accountability mechanisms. These in our view are the Achilles’ heels of the new NSP.”

He cautioned that the reality is that the NSP kicks off at a time when resources for health are diminishing, a weak currency is contributing to significant increases in drug prices, and there is a deepening crisis in human resources because resources are insufficient to meet basic HR needs. The system is close to collapse. He also called for a “strong SANAC that can lead, direct and accelerate the response. Rather damningly, they conclude that, “We fear SANAC in its current state does not meet this muster.”

Ariane Nevin of Sonke Gender Justice and Thulani Ndlovu of Zonk’izizwe Odds Development wrote that the first draft of the NSP, released in November 2016, was cause for some jubilation for prisoners’ rights activists, for the first time including inmates as an HIV key population and incorporating important human rights language and interventions for prisons. However, they celebrated too soon, as two drafts later, following “a far from transparent or inclusive political process”, the prison-focused language has been markedly stripped down. Although inmates remain a key population for both HIV and TB, and recipients of a core package of services targeting key populations, the NSP is missing interventions directed at addressing the causes of the TB and HIV epidemics in prisons: insufficient infection control, non-implementation of the Policy to Prevent Sexual Abuse of Inmates, dismal levels of overcrowding , inadequate ventilation, and insufficient re-integration support or linkage to care for ex-inmates upon release, to list but a few.

Marlise Richter, of Sonke Gender Justice, and Thuli Khozaof and Katlego Rasebitseof the SANAC Sex Work sector, writing in Spotlight,  also highlight the “tricky” drafting process of the NSP.  They made the case for a much more robust section on the structural factors that impact on sex work. These include a strong call for the decriminalisation of sex work with clear indicators, the elimination of the police practice of ‘Condoms as Evidence’, removing ideology-based funding restrictions and including a migration focus.

Sasha Stevenson of SECTION27 argued that the NSP offers promising statements on human resources for health in general, and community health workers in particular, but that the question is how far the new NSP goes in advancing the discussion around and demand for the development and integration of community health workers as a vital cadre of health care worker for the implementation of the NSP and strengthening of the health care system. The answer, unfortunately, she says, is “not far enough”.

NOTE: Spotlight is published by the TAC and SECTION27 – both of which are mentioned in this article. The editorial team has however been given editorial independence – which we guard jealously.