Swaziland - Our Backgound
 

All 12 urban local authorities are active members of AMICAALL Swaziland. Established in 2001, the Swaziland programme aims to build healthy and productive urban communities in the era of HIV/AIDS. To achieve this objective, a wide range of activities have been undertaken in several programmatic areas in the past two years.

Prevention activities results in the past two years include:

  • over 45,000 youths being reached in peer education and in-school clubs;

  • 6,500 clients reached with prevention of mother to child transmission (PCMTC) programmes;

  • 106 VCT promotions reached 17,000 urban residents; 2,600 of whom went for testing; and,

  • 1,860,000 condoms were distributed. In addition, workplace programmes were undertaken in all municipalities.

Under impact mitigation:

  • home based care was provided to 3,100 clients;

  • 7,600 orphans were reached through orphan care and child protection points;

  • a range of food security projects and income generating projects were carried out; and

  • an antiretroviral treatment clinic in the largest city operated.

Community conversations reached 32,000 residents and 35,000 participated in community mobilization initiatives which informed planning and citizen engagement. Skills development, monitoring and evaluation and production of publications also followed.
 
Swaziland National Chapter of The Alliance launched in January 2000
 

With support from the Swaziland National Association of Local Authorities (SNALA) and Local Authorities Managers Association of Swaziland (LAMAS) the Swaziland Chapter of the Alliance was launched in January 2000, and a Declaration on HIV/AIDS was endorsed by all the local authorities. The AMICAALL Programme was launched in 2001, a constitution was developed and approved, and activities initiated in all of the municipalities.

In March 2006, AMICAALL Swaziland signed a second grant agreement with the Africa Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) worth US$1 million. The grant was awarded to AMICAALL Swaziland after successful implementation of an initial US$1.04 million grant from ACBF during 2001 – 2005. Under the first grant, ACBF was pleased with AMICAALL Swaziland’s activities to decentralise the national response to the AIDS epidemic through improved mechanisms and coordination capacities at the municipal level.

AMICAALL Swaziland’s activities initially focused on advocacy, programme development and technical capacity development of municipalities and urban communities to mount local responses. More recent activities have targeted service development in all 12 municipalities including: prevention, home-based care and other support, voluntary counseling and testing (VCT), feeding centres, and support to orphans and vulnerable youth, including vocational training. AMICAALL Swaziland has made significant progress in scaling up the local response to the epidemic. The national government has designated AMICAALL Swaziland as the lead organisation for facilitating local government responses to the epidemic within urban areas.