Philippe Douste-Blazy

The UN Under-Secretary General for Innovative Finance, along with HIV experts and advocates, is urging governments to tax financial transactions such as foreign currency exchanges to help fund HIV and other development work.

“We have to fight to convince countries to do this,” Philippe Douste-Blazy said at a press conference today at the AIDS 2010 meeting in Vienna, Austria, referring to the recommendation in a report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to implement bank taxes. “If we advocate that it’s for developing countries, it will be very hard for governments to say no.”

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Ms. Dehab Belay

A CRS project that focuses on burial societies known as idirs is helping thousands of people in Ethiopia to talk about HIV and take action, according to a presentation by Dehab Belay, a CRS staff member who recently completed a study on the program’s effectiveness.
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Funding sustainability depends on local ownership and leadership, and is built through capacity building that starts at the beginning of a project and adapts to changing circumstances, according to a presentation given by the Chief of Party of AIDSRelief, a 10-country treatment grant funded by the U.S. Government, and for which CRS is the prime agency.

Presenting information on funding ART for sustainability at a pre-conference gathering for Catholic organizations on Sunday, July 18, 2010, Michele Broemmelsiek said sustainability means that “persons living with HIV have uninterrupted access to quality HIV care and treatment.”
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Shannon Senefeld

Speaking at a symposium on Children and HIV, a CRS technical advisor explained how a socio-ecological framework can be used to support the development and implementation of multi-sectoral programs to address gender inequality in multiple settings.
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Guy Vanmeenen

Small savings and lending groups are helping communities throughout rural Africa to save money and help the very poor, a CRS staff member told participants at a pre-conference on Children and HIV, held in Vienna on July 17th, the day before the opening of AIDS 2010.

Guy Vanmeenen, a CRS Senior Technical Advisor based in Nairobi, said the concept of savings and internal lending communities – also known as SILC – is a relatively new approach and an innovation within the microfinance industry.
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Non-governmental organizations held numerous consultations and workshops today in Vienna in the lead-up to AIDS 2010, a global conference scheduled to start Sunday July 18 in the Austrian capital.

Speaking at a symposium on Children and HIV, the head of UNAIDS said universal access for children is about more than the ability to receive treatment. “It’s about social justice,” Michel Sidibe said in his keynote address. “I’m here because I want to be a part of a new movement that places children at the center of the [HIV and AIDS] agenda.” Read on »

CRS held a conference titled “ICT4D” (Information and Communications Technology for Development) in Nairobi, Kenya, on March 11-13, 2010. Guided by the theme “Knowledge and Innovation,” the conference aimed to devise an agency-wide strategy that will enable projects to use ICT solutions that are backstopped by the staff, management, and support necessary to deploy them successfully. Attendees included both CRS staff and external participants. For more information about the event, please click here.

A recent article at USCatholic.org provides some insight into the CRS-sponsored “Water, Conflict and Cooperation: Practical Concerns for Water Development Projects” discussion. For archival purposes, the text of that article is available on our site, along with some additional pictures of speakers on the panel.

CRS and the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program organized a panel discussion about water’s complex role in conflict and development on January 6th in Washington, DC. Titled “Water, Conflict and Cooperation: Practical Concerns for Water Development Projects,” the meeting followed the release of a CRS publication titled Water and Conflict, which describes how water scarcity, access to water supplies, pollution of water sources and transboundary water management play a role in disputes, political manipulation and, in worst cases, outright conflict. Click here for more information on this and other CRS publications in Water and Sanitation. To learn more about the discussion, click here.

Sudanese refugees in Cairo. photo: madmonk

Academics, policy makers and advocates met at a CRS-sponsored consultation from October 23-25 to create public policy recommendations — particularly for the United Nations and the United States government — aimed at improving the protection of refugees and other displaced populations. Read on »

Sister Gertrude Kabanyomozi

The care of people living with HIV was the subject of a two-day forum organized by CRS on September 15-16 in Washington DC. Over 100 participants attended the meeting, including academics, policy makers, beneficiaries and CRS staff. Read on »

Registration is now open for the HIV Continuum of Care Forum, a showcase of innovative and promising practices from Catholic Relief Services’ care, treatment, and support programs around the world.

This two-day meeting will convene September 15 and 16, 2009, at the AED Conference Center in Washington, D.C. Registration is free, and CRS invites practitioners, policy makers, donors, and researchers to join our staff and a number of current program beneficiaries in discussing the continuum of care for HIV and AIDS.

Catholic Relief Services initiated its first HIV and AIDS program in 1986 in Bangkok, Thailand. CRS now has HIV programming in 62 countries across Africa and the hardest-hit regions of Asia and Latin America. CRS supports more than 280 HIV and AIDS projects in the poorest and most vulnerable areas of the developing world, with a total expenditure of $170 million in 2009 alone. This year, CRS will help nearly 24 million people affected by the pandemic—more than 8 million directly and nearly 16 million indirectly.

CRS programming in HIV and AIDS has evolved to help individuals, families and communities as they struggle through the physical, economic, social and emotional devastation of the disease. Dignity and quality of life are at the heart of CRS HIV and AIDS programming. We also work to reduce the spread of the disease by addressing its fundamental causes and helping everybody understand the causes and options available to help reduce transmission of the disease. Through our vast network of local partners— including Catholic, governmental, and other faith-based and private organizations—we can support people and communities as they fight to stem the tide of this pandemic.

For details and online registration, visit the meeting webpage.