USAID-Family Focused HIV Prevention Care and Treatment Services Amhara Development Association (ADA) Summary Minutes of Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) Quarter-2 Review Meeting

USAID-Family Focused HIV Prevention Care and Treatment Services Amhara Development Association (ADA) Summary Minutes of Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) Quarter-2 Review Meeting

USAID-Family Focused HIV Prevention Care and Treatment Services Amhara Development Association (ADA) Summary Minutes of Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) Quarter-2 Review Meeting USAID-Family-Focused HIV Prevention, Care, and Treatment Services are implemented in 47 Woredas of the Amhara region. The Amhara Development Association (ADA) acts as a prime organization, leads the services, and provides technical assistance to 7 Sub-recipients. FY24 Quarter-2 (Q-2) review meeting held in Addis Ababa at Golden Tulip Hotel from May 23-24,2024 to review the performance. A welcoming remark was provided by Dr. Kassa Truneh (Chief of Party for USAID Family Focused HIV Prevention Care and Treatment Services), and he welcomed and thanks participants to attend this FY24_Q2 performance review meeting, and the guests were from MOH, USAID-AOR, ADA-HO (Deputy CEO and Directors) Technical Partners (FHI360, Project HOPE, IRCE), the seven sub-recipient partners (Executive Directors, Project Coordinators, and specialists), other prime partners (ISHIDO, Mekidim Ethiopia, and IRC), and Government regional Bureaus (BOFEC, and BoWCA). The total number of participants was 95. Dr. Kassa finally said, “The main objective of this review meeting is to review the USAID-Family Focused HIV prevention, Care and treatment services semiannual achievement using the developed adaptive strategy and additional guidance, strengthen our partnership, improve stakeholder engagement, and finally developing action points.” The keynote addresses were described by Mr.Habtamu (Ministry of Health), and Mr. Tsegaye (USAID-AOR) sequentially. Mr.Habtamu said that the HIV prevention, care, and treatment program implemented at the community level is very tiresome and needs support from the government.” as a MOH, he promised to strengthen the partnership and provide any support to ADA for successful implementation of the activity. Mr.Tsegaye also thanked ADA’s leadership for preparing this review meeting regardless of the active conflicts conducted in the Amhara region. He said “Sub-recipients are expected to present their achievements, capacities, experiences, successes, and describe the outcomes considering the 4th year activity implementation period. Besides, Mr.Mezgebe (the Deputy Executive Officer for ADA) added keynotes and provided the opening remarks as the Amhara region has so many community problems, so we all have to strengthen our partnership to alleviate social development challenges. In addition to this, he motivates all the meeting participants to be members of ADA. Presentation and Discussions The activity has presented its performance based on the PEPFAR MER and custom indicators to discuss its strengths as well as improvement areas. The grant and finance department has also presented the findings of financial performance monitoring. The MOH presents the HIV strategy plan. Then Dr. Afework (former ASAP Staff) presented his observation regarding localization, gaps, challenges and way forwards. Then, OVC Comprehensive service quality assessment findings, IIT and case identification data verification results, and GBV-one stop centers (OSCs) baseline assessment presented by ADA technical staff. Finally, all 7 Sub-recipients presented their SAPR performance and achievement using the standard presentation template. Their presentation was focused on data management, performance beyond numbers, financial performance, success and lessons learned, and challenges. Dr. Afework (Deputy Chief of Party of MENA, USAID Family Focused HIV Prevention Care and Treatment Services), described that Local Implementor Partners (LIPs) need to strengthen their capacities, collaboration, and partnerships, so they can successfully implement any HIV and other national and international program activities. The assessments and verification presentations also depict the efforts of the ADA to ensure and provide quality services to beneficiaries. LIPs also successfully achieved some of the major MER indicators expected by USAID. A few sub recipients need improvement on OVC Primary prevention, and almost all LIPS expected great effort for OVC Graduation activity and pediatric case identification from the OVC pool. Besides, except BPDO, the HTS_INDEX testing as well as the HTS_INDEX_POS need improvement to achieve at least 50% of the given target. When we see the HIVST performance, all LIPs need to accelerate to achieve the expected result. Way Forwards • Despite all the challenges, FY24 semiannual performance is really promising. However, there are some areas of improvement for the next quarter stated as follow • As predicting the security situation in the region is very difficult, sub-recipients should complete the backlogs and the annual target in FY_Q3 • Performance gaps are not solely the result of conflicts and partners should monitor staff commitment, and make them keep and stay at the workplace during active conflicts • Sub-recipients should support the high viral load clients based on the identified barrier analysis including socioeconomic support together with the HF; • Partners need to prioritize and provide need-based support, that may include covering transport costs, in case of VL machine failure to improve the VL coverage • The ES activity performance should be described exhaustively together with the outcome and beneficiary changes that the activity brought • Considering the 4th year activity implementation period, monitoring and maintaining quality; documentation of lessons and success stories and sustainability-related activities should be prioritized • Performance reporting through government reporting platforms like DHIS2 should be among the home-take assignments • As non-compliance with USAID financial rules and regulations is a zero-tolerance subject, leaders should pay attention to prompt remedy of the identified gaps • The activity appreciates sub-recipients leadership engagement in the program implementation, so it should be a non-stop activity • Acceleration plan and performance improvement plan development for low-performed indicators