Government ministries and departments and civil society organisations have been invited to discuss their progresses and plans towards HIV/AIDS. National coordination is the part of three ones (One action plan, one coordination, one M&E) that has been mandated by SOLNAC as part of global commitment to HIV/AIDS.

 Stakeholder coordination for an effective HIV/AIDS response in Somaliland has been one of the priority mandates of SOLNAC. The coordination meeting gives an opportunity to gather all strategic partners, stakeholders from different streams to a common platform to discuss, review and plan HIV/AIDS activities on a quarterly basis. Partners and stakeholders report their individual achievements and plans and SOLNAC puts together all plans and inputs to map sector wise common activities that the partners and stakeholders are going to implement in the coming quarter. To support individual organisation’s work SOLNAC ensures technical and managerial support system at the national and regional level.

 As a national coordination body SOLNAC ensures effective programme coordination, monitoring and evaluation, institutional networking and support to the partner organisations. The coordination helps partners to focus their activities, map their resource and programmes to avoid duplicity and join together to bring maximum programme impact.

 Presentation and discussion:

Individual organisations are grouped under different themes areas based on their activities. Accordingly different business sessions were planned and each session has a theme to discuss. There were four major themes i.e. (a) advocacy, awareness & community mobilisation, (b) prevention, treatment, care and support, (c) cross-cutting issues, and (d) monitoring and evaluation. There were seventeen presentations by all partners and stakeholders including UN agencies, international organisations, national organisations and civil society organisations. Moderators were selected from the groups to facilitate the sessions.

 Each individual organisation were given ten minutes to present programme achievements of last quarters (June to August) and plan for the coming quarter (September to November). After each thematic presentation there was a discussion to clarify doubts and bring consensus.

 Through the presentations of partners who were attended in the coordination meeting the following points have been observed:

 ·        Increasing coordination of response using the 3-ones initiative

 ·        Multi-sectoral representation

 ·        High acceptance of SOLNAC as a coordination body

 ·        Vibrant civil society involvement

 ·        Minimal public sector involvement

 ·        Increasing source of funding-GFATM, Finnish Govt, Swedish government, Somali communities in Diaspora, DFID, IGAD, UN regular budget (UNAIDS, UNICEF, WHO, WFP,UNDP, UNFPA)

 ·        Improved local capacity on programming

 ·        Expansion of the response towards universal access

 ·        Impressive participation of UNTG on HIV/AIDS and international NGOS

 ·        Impressive M&E practices by civil society and SOLNAC

  Mohamed H. Osman

Executive Director of SOLNAC