The Community Advocacy Initiative (CAI) is a three-year (July 2008 to June 2011) programme which aims to expand and strengthen country and regional-level community sector advocacy capacity towards improved responses to HIV and AIDS.

Funded by AusAID through the HIV Consortium for Partnerships in Asia and the Pacific, APCASO co-implements CAI with the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations (AFAO) in partnership with local community organisations. At the country level, CAI is implemented in Indonesia, Laos and Vietnam with partners GAYa NUSANTARA and Laos Youth Action for AIDS Programme (LYAP). (Activities in Vietnam are expected to begin in early 2010.)

Country-level activities support advocacy planning and implementation amongst local community organisations through a programme of advocacy skills building and strengthening. Over the course of the programme, participants attend two one-week skills-building workshops and receive ongoing support to implement advocacy initiatives.

CAI workshops are structured around the “HIV Advocacy from the Ground Up: A Toolkit for Strengthening Local Responses.” This toolkit, which was developed by APCASO and AFAO in a previous project*, was published and launched in late 2008. The toolkit draws upon local contextual issues to assist participants in identifying advocacy priorities, as well as design, develop and implement effective advocacy programmes. Translations of the toolkit in several major Asian languages are being finalised, namely, Chinese, Bahasa Indonesia, Vietnamese and Laotian. These translated versions will be available in stages.  

CAI participants are supported by APCASO and AFAO to consolidate workshop learning via facilitated on-going support around implementation of advocacy plans. Working with other key HIV stakeholders in the country towards support of the local groups’ advocacy initiatives—i.e., with government agencies and ministries, UN agencies and international NGOs—is a core component of the programme.

At the regional level, CAI aims to strengthen APCASO’s organisational capacity in advocacy, policy analysis and capacity development programming. By doing this it is hoped that APCASO will be more able to provide strategic advice and assistance to the HIV and AIDS community sector across the region, as well as its capacity to represent and advocate within regional and global policy environments.