Programs

Over the past three decades, FHI has supported the Government of Nepal in the areas of family planning, reproductive health, STIs and HIV/AIDS.

Since 1993, FHI has formed partnership with government agencies, NGOs, and private sector companies in Nepal to curtail the spread of HIV among those most vulnerable to it.  

Applying its international experience and expertise from work in more than 60 countries, FHI offers technical assistance in HIV/AIDS prevention and care in the following areas:

• Behavior change interventions (BCI)
• Condom promotion and community-based social marketing
• Mass media communications
• Evaluation and surveillance, including behavioral surveillance surveys (BSS) and qualitative studies
• Policy support
• Sexually transmitted infection (STI) management
• Voluntary counseling and testing (VCT)
• Care and support of people living with HIV/AIDS and their families (PLWHA)
• Stigma reduction
• Cross border collaboration

FHI Nepal and IMPACT Project

Building on and expanding an HIV prevention approach from AIDS Control and Prevention Projects, AIDSCAP I and II (1993-2002), FHI managed the comprehensive Implementing AIDS Prevention and Care (IMPACT) Project in Nepal from May 2001 through March 2007. The project built the capacity of Nepalese organizations to conduct HIV prevention and care activities to reduce HIV transmission and mitigate the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Nepal. The IMPACT Project implemented an expanded and comprehensive response through prevention, control, and care interventions.

The IMPACT/Nepal program reached those at most risk of contracting HIV, including female sex workers (FSW), their clients, injection drug users (IDU), men who have sex with men (MSM) and migrant workers (particularly those who migrate to Mumbai, India), and provided care and support to those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. Women and men with multiple sex partners, wives with transient husbands, and youth were also reached.

Focus on Highways, Cities, and Migration Issues

IMPACT/Nepal focused on three main areas to reach its beneficiaries:

• Safe highways: Expanded the successful targeted highway interventions to include all major transport routes
• Safe cities: Implemented integrated prevention-to-care services in selected urban areas where concentrations of vulnerable populations have been identified, such as Kathmandu and Pokhara Valleys.  
• Safe migration: Expanded westward into high migration areas of western and far-western regions with comprehensive risk reduction interventions.

Five programmatic strategies were employed for HIV/AIDS prevention and care:

• Increased risk-reduction behavior among target populations to reduce risk and vulnerability to HIV
• Improved utilization of quality STI services
• Improved capacity in policy development, surveillance and evaluation to improve the availability and use of data for decision-making
• Increased government leadership, NGO participation, and private sector involvement in HIV/AIDS prevention and care efforts
• Improved community-based information, advocacy, and care systems responding to the needs of HIV infected people to strengthen HIV/AIDS care and support