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UN Supports Malawi’s second successful national HIV Testing and Counselling week
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(Top) Tenga and his wife Gilbeta in the counselling
room at Mitundu Community Hospital, 40
kilometres out of Lilongwe City Centre. (Above)
Grace Banda works with Partners in Hope, a NGO
providing health services in Malawi. She is part of a
team supervising the testing and counselling week
in Lilongwe Districts. Supervising teams monitored
supplies, logistics and record keeping at all static and
mobile testing centres in the District. In the pictures,
Grace tops up supplies at a centre in Likuni. |
Preliminary reports estimate that 150,000 men, women and children went for a HIV testing during the weeklong national Testing and Counselling Week in Malawi in July. The Ministry of Health estimated 130,000 people would take advantage of the campaign, based on last year’s high turn out. Over 300,000 were already positioned in static and mobile testing sites countrywide.
Malawi’s 2007 HIV Testing Week has been organised with assistance from the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malawi through National AIDS Commission, the United Nations System in the country, the US government among other donors as well as a host of non-governmental organisation involved in the planning, mobilisation and logistics.
The UN family supported the testing week, in its second year, as part of a wider programme to enable Malawi achieve universal access to HIV and AIDS prevention, treatment, care and support by 2010. Financial contribution to the tune of $130,000 was provided for community mobilisation efforts, logistics, monitoring and documenting the exercise. In addition, 2 million condoms, including 500,000 female condoms were supplied.
At least 15 UN staff from the UN worked half or full time as part of committees, planning logistics and supplies and as part of the monitoring teams during the testing week.
The 2007 UN Millennium Development Goals report released in July by the Secretary General reports that Malawi’s infection rates in the rural areas remain high, but the country had realised declines in HIV prevalence in urban areas.
Under the banner “Plan your future, go for a HIV test today”, Malawi was the first in sub-Saharan Africa to come up with a national HIV testing week and the initiative received recognition at a recent HIV/AIDS Implementers meeting in Rwanda. The campaign attracted government officials from Lesotho, Swaziland and Kenya and representatives from CDC Atlanta, USAID Washington and the Global Fund who were in the country during the testing week to learn from this experience. |
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World Food Programme Promotes Local Procurement
For the second year running, Malawi has recorded a bumper harvest this year. World Food Programme says that it will buy more maize from local suppliers this year for use in its vital humanitarian operations in Malawi and other southern African countries. WFP strongly supports local procurement and will buy food aid locally whenever there are sufficient funds and food surpluses available. Local procurement assists farmers and stimulates the local economy as well as helping WFP to speed up the delivery of food aid to our beneficiaries.
So far this year, WFP has already purchased 41,000 tons of different food aid commodities from Malawi – 4,000 more tons than purchased in the entire 2006.
Since 2002, WFP has procured more than 160,000 tons of food commodities from Malawi, including maize, maize-meal, likuni phala, pulses, biscuits, salt and sugar. Over US$ 38 million have been injected into the Malawian economy through local procurement with a further US$ 10 million benefiting the local transport sector.
The bulk of this food has been distributed to vulnerable people in Malawi. WFP operations in neighbouring countries including Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe have received food aid purchased in Malawi.
Malawi’s crops are becoming increasingly important to WFP’s activities across the region. This year, half of the food that WFP has bought for its operations in southern Africa is from Malawi.
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52,000 Walk the World in Malawi
WFP and the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and its partners organised another successful 2007 Fight Hunger: Walk the World event on 13 May.
Thirty-three walks took place in 13 districts and 52,000 people took part in the walk, attracting 7,000 more people than last year. As at 24 May 2007, US$ 10,000 had been raised through contributions and sale of visibility items. More funds are expected from organisations and individuals.
Pictures of the walk in Lilongwe |
