Global Advances in HIV / AIDS Monitoring and Evaluation

Deborah Rugg is the associate director of the Monitoring and Evaluation Team for the Global AIDS Program at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia. Greet Peersman is the techical deputy director of the Monitoring and Evaluation Team for the Global AIDS Program at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia. Michel Carael retired from the chief evaluation position in the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS in 2004 and is currently a professor at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium, and consultant in evaluation.

Editors' Notes (Deborah Rugg, Greet Peersman, Michel Carael). 1. Politics of Monitoring and Evaluation: Lessons from the AIDS Epidemic (Paul De Lay, Valerie Manda). External pressures may suppress, limit, delay, manipulate, or selectively use monitoring and evaluation outputs. 2. Global Advances in Monitoring and Evaluation of HIV/AIDS: From AIDS Case Reporting to Program Improvement (Deborah Rugg, Michel Carael, Jan Ties Boerma, John Novak). In the past twenty years, many international developments have occurred in HIV/AIDS monitoring and evaluation. global agencies are now taking deliberate steps toward creating a unified approach and organizing frameworks that link different data collection efforts. 3. Has the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS Made a Difference? (Nicole Massoud, Paul De Lay, Michel Carael). The 2001 Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS by 189 countries serves as a benchmark for global action on HIV/AIDS. The authors focus on the added value of the declaration and on the lessons learned from the first round of reporting. 4. Efforts in Collaboration and Coordination of HIV/AIDS Monitoring and Evaluation: Contributions and Lessons of Two U.S. Government Agencies in a Global Partnership (Deborah Rugg, John Novak, Greet Peersman, Karen A. Heckert, Jack Spencer, Katherine Marconi ). This chapter highlights collaboration experiences in the global monitoring and evaluation (M&E) partnership to set international standards and provide direct M&E support to national AIDS programs. 5. Developing and Implementing Monitoring and Evaluation Methods in the New Era of Expanded Care and Treatment of HIV/AIDS (R. Cameron Wolf, George Bicego, Katherine Marconi, Ruth Bessinger, Eric van Praag, Shanti -Noriega-Minichiello, Gregory Pappas, Nancy Fronczak, Greet Peersman, Renee K. Fiorentino, Deborah Rugg, John Novak). As program planners and policymakers are deciding on the best approaches for scaling up HIV/AIDS care and treatment services, the M&E community has begun to develop the necessary methods and tools. The authors critique their experience with the development and pilot testing of indicators and summarize the strengths and limitations of different -data-collection methods. 6. World Bank contribution to Building National HIV/AIDS monitoring and Evaluation capacity in Africa: Going Beyond Indicator Development and Conceptual Training (David Wilson). The author addresses M&E capacity building from the perspective of the World Bank's recent efforts in supporting the implementation of national M&E plans. 7. Monitoring and Evaluating the National Program to Prevent Mother-to-Child HIV Transmission in Thailand (Siripon Kanshana, Thananda Naiwatanakul, R. J. Simonds, Pornsinee Amornwichet, Achara Teeraratkul, Mary Culnane, Nartlada Chantharojwong, Khanchit Limpakarnjanarat). A national computerized system was developed to monitor the implementation of the national program for preventing -mother-to-child transmission at the hospital level, provide administrative data for resource allocation planning, and provide surveillance data on the prevalence of HIV infection among women in antenatal care. 8. Planning and Implementing a National monitoring and Evaluation System in Ghana: A Participatory and Decentralized Approach (Sylvia J. Anie, Emmanuel Tettey Larbi). Considerations of practicality and feasibility, taking into account prevailing challenges and technological drawbacks, led to the development of a simple national M&E system with clear lines of responsibility and division of labor. 9. Intervention Research and Program Evaluation: the Need to Move Beyond Monitoring (Greet Peersman, Deborah Rugg). The authors assess the body of evidence from evaluation studies for its credibility and usefulness in making -HIV-prevention efforts more effective and suggest some pragmatic approaches to improving evaluation practice and access to evaluation results. 10. Global Standards for Monitoring and Evaluating National AIDS Programs: Challenges, Concerns, and Needs of Developing Countries (Nicolas Meda). Providing a commentary as a voice from the field, the author reflects on the relevance of M&E approaches discussed in this issue. He also provides valuable insight into the needs and concerns of both developing country governments and organizations working in these countries. 11. A Microcosm of the Global Challenges Facing the Field: Commentary on HIV/AIDS Monitoring and Evaluation (Michael Quinn Patton). The author links M&E issues discussed in this issue with those from other areas of evaluation and critiques global HIV/AIDS M&E efforts as a potential prototype for other areas of evaluation. Index.