About the Global HIV/AIDS Initiatives Network
Global funding for HIV/AIDS has increased dramatically during the past decade. Three global HIV/AIDS initiatives (GHIs) are together contributing most of the direct external funding to scaling up HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care: the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), and the World Bank’s HIV/AIDS programmes including the Multi-country AIDS Programme (MAP).
The Global HIV/AIDS Initiatives Network (GHIN) is led by Professor Ruairi Brugha of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) and by Professor Gill Walt of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). GHIN activities are coordinated by Neil Spicer (LSHTM), Aisling Walsh (RCSI), Regien Biesma (RCSI), Carlos Bruen (RCSI) and Andrew Harmer (LSHTM).
GHIN comprises researchers in 22 countries who are exploring the effects of these Global Health Initiatives on existing health systems. GHIN is focusing on collecting evidence of these effects from regions, facilities and services, and communities, in order to inform policy development at national and international level.
GHIN adds value to individual country studies by:
- Promoting comparability through common research protocols and tools
- Sharing expertise across country study teams and building research capacity
- Generating multi-country comparisons and context-specific policy lessons
- Coordinating dissemination of findings and recommendations and streamlining communication with global stakeholders
Recent publications
GHIN has published a new Policy Brief - Understanding the effects of global health initiatives on health systems strengthening. The Policy brief draws on data collected from 8 GHIN country studies (China, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Malawi, Peru, Uganda, Ukraine and Zambia). It concludes that while there are signs of improved transparency and coordination of services within countries, the scale up in funding that GHIs have provided has not resulted in equitable access to and delivery of services between urban and rural areas, and has increased workload without a corresponding increase in workforce.
GHIN has also published a Policy Brief on Global health initiatives and human resources for HIV/AIDS services in Malawi, Uganda and Zambia. The policy brief concludes that scale up of GHI funding has not translated into significant increases in the health workforce. Rural areas - where HIV/AIDS services are most neglected - received proportionately fewer staff than urban areas, and increases in staff for non-clinical HIV/AIDS services were not replicated for clinical services.
In all three countries the national health workforce has not grown proportionately to the increasing number of clients seeking care and treatment for HIV/AIDS. As a result, workloads have increased across all health cadres.
Training takes time and it is still too early to determine accurately the effects of scale up, although increased capacity is reported in most countries. Monitoring of training is weak, however, and time set aside for training has stretched an already overburdened workforce, leading to high levels of absenteeism from work.
GHIN research on the effect of GHIs on coordination is now accessible online: 'National and Subnational HIV/AIDS coordination: are global health initiatives closing the gap between intent and practice?' from Globalization and Health.
GHIN and the Consortium for Research on Equitable Health Systems (CREHS) have co-published a Policy Brief on lessons learned from collaboration in research partnerships: Multi-Country Partnerships: Adding Value to Research
GHIN database
GHIN's website hosts a searchable database of research publications and other literature on global HIV/AIDS initiatives:
- HIV/AIDS services
- Health system strengthening
- Human resources
- Governance
- Access to services/equity
- Vulnerable groups
- Funding
- Civil society
- Countries
- Global HIV/AIDS initiatives