Connecting the Grassroots Project

This collaborative process involved drafting a blueprint for mechanisms to enhance international ASO to ASO collaboration through communication that involved:

• Consulting with AIDS groups engaged in Southern-US collaboration, with groups engaged in international collaborations on non-AIDS issues, and with other key institutions to ascertain their experience and recommendations for needed support mechanisms.
• Participating in organisation meetings of US and Southern ASOs to discuss how international collaborations can best be undertaken and what new mechanisms are needed, if any.
• Drawing together an advisory group of US and Southern ASOs to explore the results of this research and to make recommendations.
• Reporting on this research and dialogue in a preliminary report (click here to download the report in Word format) prior to issuing a final, January 2003 report (click here to download the report in Word format) that includes detailed recommendations as to what new mechanisms may be needed to enhance US-South ASO collaboration.

In its final report, GAAN concluded that mechanisms to enhance international ASO collaboration are needed as twinning activities multiply. Key to the successful implementation of ASO twinnings, participants in the process found, is sustained leadership by Southern groups and coordination of goals and standards by Northern institutions. Involvement and participation of grassroots AIDS groups in global AIDS issues and activities is a key message of the report. In the words of the Program Director, "we encourage ASOs to become involved in global AIDS activities and for governments and the private sector to support the best of these efforts. In addition to providing direct support to both southern and northern ASOs engaged in twinning GAAN urges...that small regional mechanisms be supported to enhance the international ASO collaboration. We recommend that these mechanisms be run entirely by ASOs based in developing nations..."

Specifically, GAAN urged USAID to:

• Support the creation of Southern-based regional hubs tasked specifically to enhance international ASO communication and collaboration.
• Support efforts to create a global Internet mechanism on twinning such as is now being considered by the Canadian government (assuming that this mechanism is complementary to Southern-led mechanisms and that US support is welcome).

HIV/AIDS.

The Global AIDS Action Network (GAAN) is a small project of the Tides Center. Its mission is to involve the American AIDS community in global AIDS activity. Since inception in 1994 GAAN has undertaken a wide range of activities to provide information and promote the involvement of United States AIDS groups in global AIDS activities.

According to project organisers, "Increasing numbers of domestic US and Southern nation AIDS organizations are collaborating on global AIDS activities. Given the accelerating pandemic and the increasing ability of groups to connect via the Internet it is highly probable that the desire for international collaboration will increase in the decades to come. These collaborations occur in differing ways from formal partnerships and program work to informal linkages and participation in networks, conferences, listserves, and meetings....US and Southern AIDS groups that work together create their own collaborations and maintain them with little assistance. GAAN believes that ASO to ASO communication and collaboration has the potential to alter the global AIDS debate by directly linking north and south communities, transforming their ability to inform public opinion and public policy. International ASO collaborations can also provide unique technical assistance and solidarity between like groups. These collaborations are valuable to the groups involved as is demonstrated by their willingness to create and sustain them with virtually no support."