40 years of DAI

the mid- and late 2000s, the company under-
took some promising initiatives with PEPFAR
funding. In Zambia, the Market Access Trade
and Enabling Policies Project provided HIV/
AIDS training for businesspeople; in Lesotho,
ECIAfrica organized a powerful grassroots
group, the Lesotho Apparel Alliance, to fight
HIV/AIDS in the clothing industry; and in Ethiopia,
DAI administered a novel “urban agriculture”
program that gave women affected by
HIV/AIDS the tools they needed to raise their
standards of living and nutrition.
As these initiatives unfolded, DAI was learning
to respond to yet another international health
threat. H5N1, the highly pathogenic avian
influenza virus, seemed to emerge suddenly. In
the mid-2000s, a series of outbreaks hit Asia,
especially China, Indonesia, and Turkey. In
2005, USAID transformed a long-term project
in Armenia—adjacent to Turkey, one of the
outbreak countries—into an avian influenza
initiative, and suddenly DAI personnel had an
unexpected challenge on their hands. In a classic
case of give and take between donor and
implementer, DAI urged USAID to focus less on
veterinary issues and more on cultural problems.
“We’re not going to change the behavior
of chickens,” insisted Gary Kilmer, Chief of Party
at the time, “we’re going to change the behavior
of people.”
That fall, DAI converted a livestock health
program into one of USAID’s largest avian
influenza response programs, mapping poultry
sectors, designing compensation schemes for
DAI’s work to combat HIV/AIDS went beyond medical concerns to address
economic and legal issues, as well. Above: A march organized by a DAI project
in Zimbabwe publicizes a program to provide legal services to HIV/AIDSaffected
people. Below: Orphans in DAI’s urban agriculture program show off
the food they have grown using an innovative growbag system.
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