UNAIDS is in the process of defining minimum quality standards for HIV prevention activities. AIBD joins the effort in formulating the minimum quality standards for media.

In the last two and half decades, HIV has spread rapidly to all parts of the world. More than 30 million are now already infected and a few thousand new infections take place every day. In the absence of a cure and effective vaccines prevention is the only method to control the spread of HIV.

Preventive activities have been taken up by International organizations, Governments, grassroots organisations and individuals. And indeed, there is a large variety of activities that can be carried out by individuals and organizations - targeted intervention, peer education, condom promotion, counseling, media campaigns, ….

In the last few years, many quarters have expressed their concern in terms of the quality of the preventive activities and the lack of co-ordination between the different kinds of activities undertaken. Hence UNAIDS is keen to develop minimum quality standards for HIV prevention activities in their own respective domains and to provide the logic for bundling these activities with other domains for maximum impact.

AIBD has been requested to contribute to the efforts by formulating the minimum quality standards for HIV prevention activities undertaken by media. There are different components in this task.

1. Make a list of terms used to denote different genres and formats of media that may be used for HIV prevention activities and to categories.
2. Put forth commonly accepted definitions for these terms
3. Identify the processes undertaken in planning for a media product
4. Identify the processes undertaken in producing a media product
5. Identify the processes of decision making about the time/slot/page in which the media product is telecast or distributed
6. Identify the crucial steps which assure minimum quality standards in production, and telecast/distribution of media product
7. And finally, analyse the manner in which media can be bundled with other prevention activities such as
a. Interpersonal education and persuasion including peer to peer, outreach and other forms of face to face education b. Prevention counseling c. Condom promotion (including male and female condoms distribution, social marketing) d. Structural interventions to mitigate the vulnerability with sex work including violence reduction, discrimination and livelihood alternatives to transactional sex

We request media professionals to take part in this endeavour. Please register your interest and fill up the questionnaire given at /tools/qst.cgi/G-253-MY-08/kp/ or give your inputs to madhu@aibd.org.my

Last updated 28.02.08 12:33 by Madhu, Project Reference G-253-MY-08