Key Achievements

• Dissemination of Information, Education and Communication (IEC) materials
• Articles and activity reports through coverage of electronic and print media
• Through seminars, workshops and World AIDS Day celebration events
• Through service delivery interventions at grass roots levels

Self Help Efforts:
Since its inception NAACC has made continuous efforts on self help basis to raise the awareness of general masses and vulnerable groups in the Northern Areas. In this regard from the year 2001 to 2004 NAACC has organised number of activities such as organising awareness seminars, walks, radio talks, training workshops, dissemination of the IEC materials and media reports. All these activities were become possible due to voluntary time and sound technical knowledge and available skills of the founder Board members of NAACC.

NAACC’s Outreach:
Through its extended membership and transparency policy NAACC has members form all six districts of the region in its network. This has enhanced NAACC’s scope of work and coverage for future interventions.

Enabling Environment:
From its establishment of the year 2002 NAACC has been organising advocacy seminars, sensitisation meetings and mass awareness activities for fight against HIV and AIDS in the region. For doing this NAACC has been involving key stakeholders including religious leaders, parliamentarians, media representatives, NGO representatives and Govt Officials in all its key speeches and ceremonies. All this has created a good impact on the vulnerable communities through enabling environment and reducing stigma and discrimination to undertake interventions for prevention and control of HIV and AIDS in the Northern Area

Human Resource Development (HRD) & Capacity Building:
Presently, NAACC is implementing the first ever Capacity Building and intervention based project for combating HIV and AIDS in the region in the NGO sector. Under the programme a large number of human resources have been developed and trained in fight against AIDS. Following is the detail of the trained human force in the entire region:
• Multi disciplinary Master Trainers trained at national level: 30
• Multi disciplinary specialists trained at regional levels: 200
• Specialists trained through miscellaneous regional trainings and other events: 1000
• Multi disciplinary trainers trained at international levels: 03
During organising all the mentioned interventions about more than 30% participation of women was ensured to make the events more productive and have long lasting impacts on the society.

The training programmes comprised of various themes such as Basic Knowledge & Information about HIV and AIDS, Governance & Leadership, Financial Management, Resource Mobilisation, Proposal Writing, Behaviour Change Communication (BCC), Peer Education (PE), Good Governance (GG), Advocacy and Public Private Partnership (PPP), Rights Based Approaches (RBA), Gender and HIV & AIDS, Project Cycle Management (PCM), Organisational Management and Interpersonal Communication (IPC), Managing Projects for HIV and AIDS and on Management of STIs.

Good Governance:
The good governance plays a pivotal role in successful implementation and improvement of any programme. NAACC has adopted a good governance approach since its inception. Legitimacy, Transparency, Accountability, Meritocracy, Openness and Sharing of Information are some of the key elements of the NAACC’s governance framework. NAACC is a registered legitimate body coupled with competent bye laws. NAACC’s Elections are held on timely and regular basis supplemented by free and transparent criteria and principles. NAACC’s quarterly board meetings are held on regular basis and decisions are taken in democratic and participatory manner. Regular Annual General Body meeting is also held timely.

Public Private Partnership and Advocacy:
NAACC has developed strong linkages, coordination and partnerships with the Northern Areas Police Department (NAPD). In this regard a formal MoU has been signed between NAACC and NAPD and following key actions have been taken so far:
• The Inspector General of Police (IGP) Northern Areas has notified to ask a compulsory question regarding HIV and AIDS during recruitment of the employees in the NAPD.
• The IGP, Northern Areas have also notified to include a compulsory question regarding HIV and AIDS during internal promotion of the employees of NAPD
• NAACC has developed the HIV and AIDS information chapter for NAPD and the department now has included this chapter in the police training manual at Police Recruitment and Training Center (PRTC) in Gilgit.
• NAACC and NAPD are being organising and conducting awareness seminars and workshops jointly for prevention and control of HIV and AIDS among police force of the Northern Areas. This initiative is on need basis and on-going.

In addition; NAACC has also developed linkages and partnerships with the Karakoram International University (KIU), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Northern Areas AIDS Control Programme (NAACP/PACP), United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), United Northern Areas NGOs (UNAN), Weekly Karakuram (local newspaper), UNAIDS Pakistan and the Canopy Nexus Hotel Gilgit.

Through partnership and coordination number of activities has been undertaken for prevention of HIV, AIDS and infectious disease in the Northern Areas.

Research:
NAACC has conducted number of research studies to find out knowledge, skills, attitude and behaviours of the vulnerable populations regarding HIV and AIDS in the region. Following studies have been conducted so far:
• HIV and AIDS assessment survey of Tourist Guides/Porters in Northern Areas. In 2003 funded by UNAIDS
• Response Situational Analysis (RSA) of Out School Youth Gilgit, October 2005
• Response Situational Analysis of Jail Inmates Gilgit, October 2005
• Response Situational Analysis of Out School Youth Chilas, March 2006
• Response Situational Analysis of Border Traders Northern Areas, March 2006
• During the year 2004 a detailed pres intervention survey was also conducted by NAACC in collaboration of PNAC before initiation of the Tameer Project
The list from (b) to (e) above was the pre intervention RSAs of the project themes. Now NAACC has further planned to conduct the Post RSA surveys of all above mentioned projects from serial (b) to (e) in near future.

NAACC Internship Programme:
At present there is acute shortage of trained and experienced professionals in the field of HIV and AIDS particularly in Northern Areas and in the entire country in general. NAACC has therefore initiated its internship programme to develop professional leadership to fill up the gap of the human resources in the region.

Under internship programme NAACC has trained around 12 of youth and university students includes 2 male and 11 females through its internship programme. These youth are working in various disciplines and at different levels.

NAACC’s Strategic Plan:
The Northern Areas AIDS Control Consortium through involvement of its entire member NGOs has developed its fifteen years strategic framework. Under this framework number of key interventions has been planned. Among all of them a key area is incorporating the HIV and AIDS information into the education curriculum in the region.

Partnership with NAACP:
The Government’s Provincial AIDS Control Programme commonly known as NAACP of the Govt of Pakistan is a fully established and authorised department for surveillance and monitoring of the disease in the Northern Areas. Since its inception NAACC has developed strong coordination and partnership with this renowned department. After sensitisation, awareness and counselling sessions, NAACC has been referring the interested people to NAACP for technical or clinical help regarding HIV and AIDS. So far it is going very well and is also a best example of Public Private Partnership in the region.

NAACC in NGOs Standing Committee:
During the year 2006 the Northern Areas Administration headed by the Chief Secretary had called a meeting of leading NGOs of the region to discuss ways of enhancing coordination between NGOs and the government institutions in the region. In that meeting 14 members NGO Standing Committee was formed for future consultations and coordination with NGOs in the Northern Areas. NAACC is among one of them representing the Standing Committee. The Chief Secretary Northern Areas Chairs the meetings of the Committee in Gilgit.

NAACC in TACA:
NAACC is representing Northern Areas in the National Technical Advisory Committee on AIDS (TACA) working under supervision of National AIDS Control Programme (NACP) in Pakistan.

Founder Member of PNAC:
NAACC has played its active role during the formation of Pakistan National AIDS Consortium (PNAC). Therefore, NAACC is among one of the founder constituent members of the PNAC.

NAACC Volunteers:
Through a Youth Advocacy Forum during 2006, NAACC has established NAACC Volunteers in the region. These volunteers support and assist NAACC to carry out different activities in the programme on voluntary and need basis.

TRAG:
NAACC has successfully formed Tameer Regional Advisory Group (TRAG) comprising of multi stakeholders and experts of the region during 2006. The 1st meeting was successfully held and decisions were smoothly implemented by NAACC as per advice and guidance of the TRAG.

Small Grants Programme (SGP):
The service delivery and field based interventions were carried out through launching of four Small Grants Projects (SGP) in partnership with NAACC’s member NGOs working at grass roots level.
The themes of the mentioned projects were Border Traders (one project), Jail Inmates (one projects) and Out of School Youth (two projects). These projects directly benefited 1300 persons and also benefited to an estimated population of 10,000 indirectly.
The amount provided to these projects was more than 6 million PKR and covered the three vulnerable thematic areas of Border Traders, Jail Inmates and Out of School Youth in Northern Areas. The SGP projects have covered interventions like awareness raising, primary health care, STI treatment, referral services, condom distribution, behaviour change communication (BCC), peer education (PE) and voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) sessions regarding fight against HIV and AIDS in the region.

As a result of all these efforts made through SGP projects; the key stakeholders of the region such as immigration department, customs, media representatives, govt officials, Northern Areas chamber of commerce and industry, youth, religious leaders and general masses of the region have been greatly sensitised and become aware about the severe impacts of HIV and AIDS.

International Exposure:
NAACC in collaboration with PNAC has organised a couple of exposure visits for its Voluntary Board Members and Staff of the Consortium. In this regard following countries have been visited to study and explore various ways of combating HIV and AIDS in different countries. The visited countries are Philippines, Thailand, Nepal and Bangladesh. Through exposure visits to these mentioned countries the experience and best practices for controlling HIV and AIDS had been shared and Capacity of the Board Members and Staff have been enhanced.
Another exposure visit of the same nature is planned to India in near future.

Partners in Tameer Project:
NAACC has diverse partners in implementing the Tameer Project which is a unique example in its nature. The partners are Pakistan National AIDS Consortium (PNAC), Interact Worldwide (IW) London, AIDOS of Italy and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) UK.

NAACC’s External Review:
NAACC’s progress has been reviewed and evaluated by the two external agencies. One of them is national and the other is international.

• Ms Gil Long of the Active Learning Centre UK along with her team from Pakistan Center for Philanthropy held meeting with NAACC’s team on 28th January 2007 at PNAC Office Islamabad. The PNAC and IWP had arranged the meeting and purpose was to make a Governance Review of NAACC.
• On 2nd April 2007 Dr Inayat Hussain Thaver of Mustashaar along with Ms Sadiqa Salahudin of IRC held a meeting with NAACC Team at PNAC Office. The consultants were hired by the National AIDS Control Programme (NACP) Islamabad to review the progress and capacities of the AIDS Consortiums throughout Pakistan.
• Pakistan Centre for Philanthropy (PCP) evaluation is under process

NAACC’s Impact of Interventions:
Through conducting and organising various interventions for prevention and control of HIV and AIDS following positive impacts have been recorded in the region:
• Enabling Environment for fight against the epidemic
• Sensitisation and creation of ownership among key stakeholders regarding the issue
• Awareness raised around 25% of the population of the region
• Stigma & Discrimination and Myths & Misconceptions regarding HIV and AIDS in the region have reduced
• Capacity of a large number of community representatives working in the health sector has been developed
• Safe health practices have been observed
• Advocacy and Public Private partnership initiatives have been fostered in the region for combating HIV and AIDS
• Access to vulnerable populations have been made possible
• About 30% vulnerable population/beneficiaries adapted safe behaviours
• Print and Electronic Media Coverage regarding the AIDS issue has drastically enhanced in the region
• Technical/professional capacity on contemporary developmental subjects is radically enhanced among about 300 professionals/volunteers and about 1000 social workers from 2001 to date
• Partnerships are being made with various stakeholders

Contemporary Developmental Approach:
All the above mentioned achievements has become possible due to adopted contemporary developmental approaches of NAACC such as proper and right documentation, Response Situational Analysis (RSA) surveys, Networking, Coordination, Good Governance (GG), Rights Based Approach (RBA), Gender Equality/equity, Advocacy and Public Private Partnership (PPP), Proper and Effective Communication Strategies, Appropriate policy and procedures and active and meaningful involvement and participation of its Key Stakeholders and Beneficiaries in all its programme interventions at different levels.

Challenges:
Following are some of the key challenges faced in the field of HIV and AIDS in the Northern Areas:
• Sustainability of the current initiatives of NAACC in the Northern Areas
• Denial
• Low understanding of the representatives of the Govt, NGOs and masses about the intensity and gravity of the issue
• Stigma and Discrimination attached with the epidemic
• Lack of any office of the International Donor Agencies and INGOs in the region
• Limited financial resource allocation towards the issue in Northern Areas