On the premise that the needs of people living with AIDS are best understood by those affected, UN Volunteers have been providing support to the Greater Involvement of People Living with HIV/AIDS (GIPA), an ongoing initiative of UNDP and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). Working within local communities in twelve countries in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, the volunteers – many of whom are HIV positive – support health and homebased care, challenge stigma and discrimination, strengthen the capacity of self-help networks, and promote prevention programmes.

In Burundi, UNV has also been helping develop and integrate HIV/AIDS policies into the workplace by assisting enterprises to factor HIV/AIDS concerns into production and development plans, creating support groups and solidarity funds to support infected employees, and setting up anonymous counselling and information services for the staff. To further promote exchange of experience, UNV is establishing a regional voluntary GIPA support network in the South-East Asia region.

Voluntary action has been recently recognized as one of the main modalities in the implementation of UNDP's Southern Africa Capacity Initiative (SACI) in nine of the most HIV/AIDS-affected countries*. UNV supports the initiative by helping respond to the loss of productive, skilled and educated workforce in the region. “It is sad to see how HIV/AIDS claims the lives of so many able people – and frightening to think what happens to families who have lost their bread winner. But we do our best to make up for these tragic losses,” says UN Volunteer Patrick Moses of Sierra Leone, based in Swaziland.

Patrick is part of a team of UN Volunteers, drawn mainly from the region, who are helping the government set the foundation for a national human resource planning strategy to ensure provision of key social services in an HIV/AIDS era. In addition, they are offsetting the immediate lack of human resources by providing professional expertise in areas such as education and health-care management as well as by strengthening the capacity of community-based organizations to provide critical services. These range from providing home-based care for people with AIDS to mobilizing the support of scores of local volunteers, including college graduates and retired civil servants, to assist in delivering essential services.

Addressing the importance of nutrition in enhancing the quality of life and welfare of people living with HIV/AIDS, UNV assists the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) regional and country offices in responding to the pandemic around the world. One of these UN Volunteers is Fanny Yago-Wienne of France, who serves as a monitoring and evaluation officer with WFP in Burkina Faso. Fanny maintains a database on gender and food security for the country and uses the information gathered to draw up vulnerability maps.

* Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, Zimbabwe