By Joseph Ganthu
The Network of Journalists Living with HIV (JONEHA) has shifted the task of collecting and analyzing data for Community Led Monitoring (CLM) from the government sponsored District Monitoring and Evaluation Committees (DMECs) to affected communities themselves; reported the Advocacy and Resource Mobilization y Officer for JONEHA Hastings Mwanza at the CLM training for 12 community representatives from 20th to 21st October 2023 in Phalombe.
Fronting DMEC in Community Led Monitoring did not make beneficiary community members implementers of CLM as DMEC is a multi-disciplinary structure coordinated by government. This did not promote principles of CLM which places affected communities at the centre of its implementation and government as policy holder and service provider” said Mwanza.
Hence to align the project to CLM principles; JONEHA with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation under the Coalition to Build Momentum, Power, Activism, Strategy and Solidarity (COMPASS) Africa initiative organized trainings that empowered community members in Cyclone Freddy affected districts of Phalombe and Mulanje to conduct data collection and analysis exercises.
Mwanza recalled that in 2019 JONEHA commenced implementation of the CLM Project in 5 PEPFAR scale up districts: Phalombe, Mulanje, Mangochi, Chiradzulu and Mzimba and that in 2020 JONEHA oriented DMECs in data collection and analysis in the targeted districts to ensure that the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Response (PEPFAR) program responds to CLM findings. In the same year data was collected and analyzed by DMECs that identified issues that formed basis for advocacy. JONEHA has been tracking these issues since then.
In his introductory remarks on the project the Advocacy and Resource Mobilization Officer explained that CLM is a mechanism that service users or affected communities apply to systematically gather qualitative and quantitative data and use it to assess availability, accessibility, acceptability, equity, and quality of services and use that information to generate solutions to identified problems and hold service providers and decision makers accountable.
“The main objective of CLM is to empower communities to carry out routine, ongoing monitoring of the availability, accessibility, acceptability, equity, and quality of specified disease prevention and treatment services and advocating for improvements on the same,” said Mwanza.
The JONEHA CLM project has two focus areas namely HIV and Drug supply. On HIV it is looking at access to prevention services such as lubricants, condoms and PrEP but also treatment, care and support. OnDrug Supply the project is assessing the availability and accessibility of essential drugs and medicines at public health facilities. Either on drugs or HIV; identified issues lead to advocacy towards improvement.
