Guidance to Private Voluntary Organizations on HIV/AIDS Program Options
As part of its Child Survival Technical Support program, Macro produced a guide to help PVOs address HIV/AIDS issues in child survival projects. To frame the question of how PVOs should proceed, we outlined allowable targets and activities under USAID’s child survival grants program and identified potential sources of additional funding.

Macro encouraged PVOs to take an integrated approach by linking prevention, voluntary counseling and confidential testing, and care and support for persons affected by HIV/AIDS. We also emphasized the importance of strengthening the capacity of families and communities to carry out HIV/AIDS-related activities.

In each of these areas, we offered specific advice. The guide described principles and possible activities, identified technical resources, and provided examples of measurable indicators and tools. With respect to prevention, we showed PVOs how to target their activities by distinguishing between high and low prevalence situations. Given the child survival context, we gave special attention to breastfeeding and other issues related to the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. The guide ended by highlighting potential advocacy areas and resources.

Child Survival Sustainability Assessment
Emerging and continuing threats to child survival in many developing countries mean that improving sustainability may be the key to achieving true impact. Toward that goal, Macro’s Child Survival Technical Support (CSTS+) program and the Child Survival Collaborations and Resources Group (CORE) produced the Child Survival Sustainability Assessment (CSSA) methodology—a tool to help Child Survival interventions integrate their plans and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems to achieve sustainable child health gains. The CSSA proposes both a framework for evaluation using locally meaningful indicators of progress and a process for assessing sustainability with the participation of communities and local partners. Within three key dimensions of local conditions, the framework suggests issues and assessment tools that a given project may want to include in its assessment.