UNAIDS - September 21, 2007

What is CHAT?

Many countries now face the challenge of having considerable amounts of money and technical support for AIDS available, but often a lack of coordination for those resources to ensure a common focus among many national partners, civil society and international partners. CHAT aims to inspire a more inclusive national response through a questionnaire/ survey process which first maps the various stakeholders involved in the national response and then through structured interviews with national and international partners establishes how well the national partners are engaged in the national response and how harmonized the international players are. This systematic information gathering and analysis helps to put together a picture at country level of the quality of the partnerships in the national response, which then catalyses a dialogue on the strengths and weaknesses, and can help countries move forward in a more focused harmonized way.

How should countries use CHAT?

Every countryÆs AIDS coordinating authority should be doing a review of progress and performance every two years ideally, and the CHAT is designed to be a part of that process, to feed into the understanding of the quality of the support and engagement with the national AIDS programme. But it is also possible to use it as a free standing tool, for example if a country is not planning to have an AIDS review for another two years but want to know now, what is the quality of the national and international engagement in the national AIDS plan.

What are the necessary steps to put the tool into practice?

CHAT has been piloted in several countries in 2006. In many of the pilot countries, the administration and analysis has been done by a consultant, on behalf of the national AIDS authority. The consultant administers the appropriate questionnairesùone for national and one for international partners, and then collates and analyses the data to produce a draft report. The CHAT contains guidance on how to do this.

Can you give an example of some of the areas covered in the questionnaire?

CHAT covers the range of areas in which the national and international partners should be engaged with the AIDS response at the country level like strategy development, resource allocation, administration and monitoring procedures. The questions are based on what is best practice and whatÆs been promised by international institutionsÆ headquarters, following their commitments to the Paris Declaration, the Three Ones and the Global Task Team for example. By the very fact of starting to ask these questions at the country level we are starting to put pressure on that we need to move in this direction, we need to improve the way we work and the way we are engaging.

The questionnaires are in the format of self reporting, for example: does your organization participate in decision making about the allocation of resources within the national AIDS budget? For many of the national partners weÆve contacted in the pilot countries, this is the first time anyone had ever really asked them these questions. The feedback has been that this exercise is empowering as all voices are being listened to.

What happens at the end of the questionnaire and analysis?

The output is a report which is intended to feed into the discussions in the context of the joint AIDS review. Most of the international community has already signed up to the principles of good practice and the challenge of the CHAT is to see if those principles are being applied in a particular country to the AIDS response. This is the only tool that exists that allows us to explore this, the intention being that it will flag areas for improvement that can then be addressed through the AIDS review at national level. We can also bring the findings back to headquarters for a comparative analysis, and look at the patterns across the regions.

What are the benefits for the countries?

Most people know the quantity of the response within countries and they should know how much money is being brought by the different partners but what is less known is how well it is all adding up together and pulling in the same direction. This is a low-maintenance tool that really allows countries to start taking stock of the quality of the AIDS response in their countries in terms of harmonization and alignment between national and international partners. It will help us start making sure that we really are "making the money work" and moving towards Universal Access.

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