UNAIDS: The First 10 Years

UNAIDS The First 10 Years204Programme Acceleration Funds were used to kick-start new processes or programmes,scale up promising initiatives such as prevention of mother-to-child transmissionprogrammes, or strengthen ongoing activities such as sentinel surveillance.Kenya has a long history of activism and civil society involvement in the country’sgeneral development, and undoubtedly this contributed to the early engagement ofcivil society in the national response to AIDS. For example, the Kenya NGOs AIDSConsortium was a leader in the area of nongovernmental organizations networkingin the early 1990s. Today, the Consortium is one of several strong nongovernmentalorganization networks actively contributing to the national response in Kenya, but itcontinues to provide capacity enhancement and information networking for a widerange of civil society organizations.Faith-based organizations (particularly mission health facilities) have been active inthe health sector response to AIDS in Kenya for decades although, at times, engagingreligious bodies in discussion around issues such as the promotion of condoms and lifeskills education has been a challenge.In the mid-1990s, Kenya had an estimated HIV prevalence of 10% in adults. Thishad dropped to 6.8% by 2003 and is currently estimated at 6.1% 1 , although thereare significant regional variations; levels of 15% have also been recorded 2 . Genderdisparities also need to be taken into account: prevalence among women is almostdouble that of men, and among girls aged 15–19 years, prevalence is six times higherthan among young men in that age group 3 . Nonetheless, Kenya is one of the fewcountries in Africa with a sustained decline in prevalence, although this is not acountry-wide occurrence, and the reasons for it are varied. They include behaviourchange such as increased condom use and reduced number of sexual partners, butprevalence will also have lowered due to the demographic impact of AIDS: higherdeath rates 4 . Though this suggests that the many prevention and behaviour changecampaigns and programmes have made an impact, Kenya has had and is still facingsome major challenges.Internally, corruption has plagued the National AIDS Control Council (NACC),leading to the prosecution and eventual imprisonment of its director in 2003. TheUNAIDS Country Coordinator at this time, Kristan Schoultz, recalled this as aparticularly difficult period as the confidence of both the public and the donors hit aserious low.1UNAIDS (2007). Global Report 2007. Geneva, UNAIDS.2Ministry of Health (2005). AIDS in Kenya: Trends, Interventions and Impact. Seventh edition. Nairobi, Governmentof Kenya.3Ibid.4UNAIDS (2005). AIDS Epidemic Update, 2005: Briefing notes for Kenya visit, 16–17 January 2007, prepared byKristan Schoultz.