EVALUATION OF REPORTING ON PROJECTS FINANCED THROUGH THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION AIDS BUDGET LINE

Abstract: The AIDS epidemic affects the whole world, as there is no region of the world that has been spared.Approximately 34-46 million people are infected with HIV and more than 24 million people havealready died since the first cases were identified in 1981. The pandemic is no longer just a healthproblem but a serious threat to human development. Significant efforts have been made to halt the transmission of the disease. As early as 1987, the European Union established a HIV/AIDSProgramme in Developing Countries. From 1994 to 2001 the EC spent an average of 625 million Euros everyyear on health, HIV/AIDS and population in more than 100 developing countries. The EC support is mainly implemented through projects financed through Community grants. The main objective of this study is to contribute to improving the quality of project reporting. The purpose is to evaluate the reporting on projects financed through the European Commission AIDSbudget line both in terms of structure and content through analyzing the final project reports. The targets and the amount of moneyinvested in the fight against HIV/AIDS are high, but are wereaching the targets and getting value for the moneyinvested? The spread of HIV/AIDS continues despite increased efforts in recent years. Nearly 5 million people became newly infected in 2003. This is more than in any previous year. The effectiveness of HIV/AIDS projects, in terms of changing attitudes and behavioural change, has been criticized. According to this study,changes canbe identified at several levels – the individual, the community and the international. It was shown in some case studies in the assessed reports thatthe projects could have significant impact on the individuals. This study shows that the strength ofthese projects was the diversityof them and the new innovative approaches. They targeted different vulnerable populations like children, IDUs, truckers etc. Further they used many strategies on addressing many areas related to AIDS as human rights, capacity building, advocacy, clinicalpractice etc. This studysuggests more systematic evaluations of the EC funded AIDS prevention projects and the application of a unified format for reporting in order to be able to compare results and effectiveness of interventions.