Present IIGH and UNDP work reflects the long-term impacts of global collaboration

The USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health team has been working with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in sub-Saharan Africa on a series of evaluations relating to projects addressing the legal environment around HIV and TB to better support key populations.

The results are helping to discern best practices, in particular the critical challenges and success factors necessary to improve the health and rights of affected communities across the region.

This collaboration came out of many years of work with UNDP, and has resulted in the sharing of resources and knowledge necessary to support this work within countries and across the region. It has also made clear the realization that methodologies and evaluations that truly have human rights at their center can have the biggest impact.

The template for this kind of effort largely originated with the work of the 2012 “The Global Commission on HIV and the Law“, which focused on the bigger picture of assessing the real world negative impacts of bad laws on people’s lives, and the ways that good laws could truly make a difference.

Based on research papers, studies, and written submissions from over 750 people and institutions, this focus on human rights and gender-related barriers and inequities – including stigma and discrimination, limited access to health services for key and vulnerable populations – resulted in a report that has made a real difference on the African continent and around the world.  

It is now possible to look at IIGH’s current work with UNDP and trace the content and methodological emphasis to that seminal 2012 Global Commission report which continues to provide a great example of how to pull groups together to create successful global health interventions.

Originally published by USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health