Donor: AVAC
Overview
AVAC’s Advocacy Fellows Program was launched in 2009. The program supports emerging and mid-career advocates to design and implement advocacy projects focused on HIV prevention in their countries and communities. The HIV focus has since been expanded to broader health issues, including:
- Prevention of HIV, tuberculosis, COVID-19, sexually transmitted infections.
- Other pandemics.
- Sexual and reproductive health.
- Pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response.
- Health equity and rights.
Advocacy Fellows carry out their projects while based at host organizations that serve as active partners in the fellowship program. The program fosters a network of deeply informed, skilled and confident advocates to strengthen and expand advocacy for the prevention of HIV and other pandemics locally, regionally and globally. Their voices accelerate ethical research and equitable access to interventions, and their oversight demands accountability so that proven interventions reach those who need them most.
Objective
To build an understanding of and support the eventual introduction of the Dual Prevention Pill (DPP) in Zambia.
Impact
Fellowship Project is currently in the early stages of implementation, Impact has so far included;
- Engagement of Ministry of Health Policy Makers for the creation of an enabling regulatory environment for the DPP.
- Engagement of 15 adolescent girls and young women as potential end-users of the DPP.
- Engagement of 10 CSO’s for feedback on the DPP as implementors in the HIV prevention and SRHR space.
- Engagement of healthcare workers on the DPP as providers of health services in family planning and prep provision.
Time frame: April 2024 – September 2025
Thematic area: Health and Wellbeing
