Worldwide, the number of children under age 15 who have lost one or both parents to AIDS stands at more than 14 million, and estimates predict this number will surpass 25 million by 2010. The vast majority – 11 million – of these children live in sub-Saharan Africa. This figure represents 11.9 percent of the region’s under-15 population. The number of orphaned young people ages 15 to 18 who are suffering the personal and social devastation of AIDS is unknown. With infection rates still increasing and people continuing to die from AIDS, the disease will continue to cause large-scale suffering for children and their families for at least the next two decades.
The impacts of HIV/AIDS on children, families, communities, and countries are products of many interrelated factors and require responses that vary by family, community, and country. These factors include the local pattern of the spread of HIV infection, economic activities, service availability, resources, public knowledge and awareness, the social environment, culture, the legal environment, and political leadership. For responses and interventions to be effective with a strategic use of resources, they must be informed by a working understanding of the most significant of these factors and how they relate to each other in terms of causality and mitigation of the devastating impacts.
This framework and resource guide is intended to help people involved in programs assisting orphans and vulnerable children conduct a situation analysis. It is hoped that this guide will bring about a better understanding of the essential elements and outcomes of a situation analysis in order to promote realistic, effective, and feasible interventions to protect and improve the well-being of the children and families who bear the greatest impact of the AIDS epidemic. The guide serves as a tool for collecting and synthesizing in-country and sub-national information. Examples of situation analyses and related research are provided throughout the document to draw upon the variety of approaches, and their components, that communities and institutions have undertaken to assess their particular situation. We hope that these will be used as applicable lessons from actual experience.
A situation analysis includes the development of sound recommendations to promote shared understanding among interested parties, which could include government ministries, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), international aid organizations, religious bodies, the public and private sectors, and community groups. All have a stake and play a role in addressing and responding to the needs of children and families destabilized by the impact of HIV/AIDS on their lives.
This guide is somewhat broad in nature. More detailed guidance on methods and tools for conducting a situation analysis is available in the Family Health International (FHI) document Assessing the Situation of Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children Affected by HIV/AIDS: A Guide for Implementers (2004). The FHI guide outlines methods for assessing factors surrounding orphans and vulnerable children in order to provide programmers in the field with specific tools and resources to assist them in a step-wise approach to the assessment process. To that end, it focuses on the process, while this framework and resource guide tells you what is important and necessary. Together, this framework and resource guide and the FHI assessment guide are envisioned as complementary resources for developing systematic approaches to assessing child vulnerability.
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