25 October 2013 -- In light of the current opportunities and challenges, national HIV programmes are required to be both strategically designed and smartly implemented in order to drive the country towards achieving the global and national commitments on HIV. A new Guide to conducting programme reviews for the health sector response to HIV/AIDS prepared by the HIV department aims to help countries do just that: to assess the design and improve the performance of their HIV programmes.
The purpose of this guide is to assist countries in planning and managing programme reviews that enable the health sector response to HIV to be assessed and the performance improved.
The guide has two parts. The first generally describes the principles and processes for reviewing programmes. It gives the background to programme reviews and highlights their purpose and scope. It also outlines the main steps in conducting programme reviews, including: preparation and planning; collecting information; analysis and synthesis; and dissemination and use.
The second part comprises checklists of key review questions in main intervention areas. The checklists present a menu of indicative questions that can be selected and adapted to various contexts and for different purposes. The key questions can also assist in developing data collection tools (such as questionnaires, observation checklists, etc.).
