1. We aim to improve the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of one million young people affected by HIV across five countries in Africa and Asia.
Link Up consortium

2. Partnership and Practical Impact
3 years, 5 counties, with opportunities for scale-up
3 years: , funded by the Dutch Foreign Ministry (BUZA)
$43.8 million reaching more than 1 million young key population groups
5 countries: Bangladesh, Burundi, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Uganda
Diverse contexts - different challenges - definite opportunities!
Partnership and Practical Impact
AIDS Alliance: Lead organisation
MSI: SRH service delivery and commodity procurement in Bangladesh, Myanmar & Uganda
Stop AIDS Now!, Athena Network and Global Youth Coalition on AIDS: Global policy partners
Population Council: Research (evaluative & operational)

3. Overview: purpose, focus, contexts
Purpose: To increase health seeking behaviours and uptake of quality integrated maternal health, family planning and HIV information, services and commodities amongst young people affected by HIV and uphold their sexual and reproductive rights.
Focus:Young people (10-24 years), Key populations including young people living with HIV, young people who sell sex, young MSM, young transgender people and young people who use drugs.
Context specific: The project is adapted to fit each country’s specific context and HIV epidemic and is based on four key essential elements
Community mobilisation and demand creation for integrated HIV & SRHR information, services and commodities
Provision of quality HIV & SRHR integrated services for young people
Strengthening community and clinical capacity to delivery integrated services
Increased participation of young people affected by HIV in advocacy for their SRHR.

4. What is Link Up about? Young people Key populations
Community-based peer outreach
Policy advocacy
Integration of HIV and SRHR
Stigma
Gender
Two points:
-We talk about Link Up as being an integration project
-We know that in addition to just focussing on integrating services, we need to tackle a lot of other essential issues
Human rights
What is Link Up about?

5. Link Up Outcome Core indicators
1 Community
Young people affected by HIV reporting improved self efficacy to make healthier choices through a supportive environment at peer, family and community level (431,231)
3 Capacity building
Service providers and civil society organisations demonstrate increased capacity and deliver improved SRH/HIV services (2,298)
2 Clinical
Services
Percentage increase of Young women affected by HIV with unmet need for family planning met. (With access to HIV/SRH commodities (116,552)
4 Policy & Advocacy
Young people affected by HIV participating in local, national, and global SRH/HIV advocacy activities SW
MSM
Could we put pictures of real young people (maybe from Burundi/Ethiopia/Myanmar pics from documentation trips) to the left and right of the table, rather than the icons? It would bring the presentation alive from the outset. Not sure what VY is.
I would talk about reaching 1 million young people with community based services; 140,000 with clinical services; training 1629 service providers and supporting policy and advocacy VY
PLHIV

6. Education & services in communities Access 2 clinical services
Model
Peer educators
Service providers
Demand Creation
Community
spots
Clinics
Capacity Building
Education & services in communities
Advocacy
Access 2 clinical services
I would suggest we delete this slide as it repeats slide 3. The triangle doesn’t quite work for me in terms of conceptualising the four areas. I think the diagram on slide 3 works better.
The table describing links between community mobilisation and clinical services – perhaps it would be better described through the two country examples.

7. Education and services
Capacity building of
service Providers
Access to services
Young People
Advocacy and Policy
Education and services
in community

8. Programme Models
In generalised HIV epidemics (Burundi, Ethiopia, Uganda) Link Up will work with young men and women aged from who are most at risk and/or are living with HIV to integrate SRH into existing HIV services, and vice versa. In these settings, the majority of young people aged are highly vulnerable to HIV - especially girls with HIV prevalence between 3-4% and high rates of unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. Link Up will work with youth as a way to reach young people most in need i.e. adolescent girls and boys and young women and men living with HIV, young married women, adolescents and young men and women with multiple concurrent partners, adolescents and young women in intergenerational relationships, girls and boys who are sexually exploited, young people who sell sex and young men who have sex with men (MSM).
In concentrated epidemics (Bangladesh and Burma) Link Up will work with people living with HIV and key population groups such as sex workers and MSM to integrate SRH into existing programmes as an entry point to reach young people affected by HIV.

10. link up research: learning and evaluating
Eileen Yam, Population Council, Washington, DC, USA

11. What is the Link Up research agenda?
Conduct exploratory research?
Evaluate Link Up activities??
Generate evidence for policy advocacy?
Test HIV-SRHR integration strategies?
Conduct community-based participatory research?

12. Four broad categories of research activities
Evaluate the “Link Up model” in three countries
Bangladesh, Myanmar, Uganda
Test strategies to address operational issues
Conduct exploratory research to fill critical global knowledge gaps
Engage community members in participatory assessment activities

13. Evaluating the Link Up model: generating demand in communities
Peer outreach in communities
Strengthened facilities
Active referrals
VOUCHER
VOUCHER
VOUCHER
VOUCHER
Bangladesh female sex workers (FSWs)
Myanmar men who have sex with men (MSM)
Uganda young people living with HIV (PLHIV)

14. Link Up research: testing strategies, filling knowledge gaps
Country
Population
Study overview
Bangladesh
Health care providers
Testing a two-part stigma reduction training
Uganda
Males and females, ages 10 to 24
Household survey examining gender attitudes
Ethiopia
Female sex workers ages 18+ who have been pregnant
Qualitative study examining their experiences with pregnancy
Male pavement dwellers ages 15 to 24
Qualitative and quantitative study examining their SRHR needs, service access

15. Link Up research: engaging communities
Country
Population
Activities
Myanmar
Myanmar Youth Stars (MYS) participants
Participatory capacity-assessment activities
Burundi
Link Up partners, community members, and other local stakeholders
Year 2 and Year 2 program evaluation workshops

16. Timelines
Baseline data collection completed for three Link Up model evaluations and the Bangladesh provider stigma reduction trainings
Endline data collection planned for Q2, 2015
Year 3 Burundi workshop planning under way
MYS capacity assessment planning under way
Exploratory studies planned for Q2-Q3, 2015
Ethiopia FSW pregnancy study data collection completed in Q3, 2014

18. Lessons learned for Project and Partnership
Diversity: Young people from key population groups have different and specific needs between groups, as well as within the groups according to age, literacy levels, family circumstances etc
Coordination: Link Up has many partners, incorporating many different departments within the consortium partners, and we have learnt programming lessons from some of the challenges of collaborative working.
Due diligence: safety and security, safeguarding guidelines, and due diligence in terms of program management
Context specific: working within existing legislative boundaries while trying to transform them
Youth leadership: takes investment and innovation, as well as to create opportunities and spaces to expand opportunities to more and more young people through the life of the project.
Scaling-up Link Up?
Other countries - building on lessons learnt
Other key population groups within existing countries
Expand to more partners (such as public sector health care facilities) in each of the existing countries

19. THANK YOU Lucy Stackpool-Moore
Senior Advisor: Sexual and Reproductive Health
International HIV and AIDS Alliance
Eileen Yam
Associate, HIV/AIDS
Population Council

20. Thank You