Combating HIV/AIDS through NGOs in Postconflict Areas: Analysis of Major Strategies for two Local NGOs in Gulu District

In recent years, NGOs have experienced a dramatic growth in numbers and funding, making them the most important factor in building a strong civil society as the state continues to loose grip in terms of providing social services. This has been mainly due to mainly their rigid and hierarchical structures, yet NGOs are distinguished by their flexibility, willingness to innovate, a capacity to operate at low costs, a capacity to promote local participation and implement projects in direct collaboration with target beneficiary groups. (Marcussen 1996, Edward and Hulme 1992). Because of this the government of Uganda and Gulu local government in particular have embraced the role NGOs can play in Combating HIV/AIDS. This can be seen from the over 500 organisations all poured in one single region partly for relief aid and most recently in 2005 for HIV/AIDS interventions. The research paper in answering one of its key questions comes to the conclusion that indeed armed conflict in Gulu district between 1987 till recently in 2005 was a major factor that contributed to the reportedly higher prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS. The destruction of the Acholi customs and cultural beliefs, inevitable prevalence of lawless and high levels of vulnerability that saw many women and girls being raped/defiled, while many still got engaged in risky sexual behaviours just for survival and desperation do justify the conclusion. The local NGO strategies in combating HIV/AIDS in Gulu district were to a great extent successful. The use of especially participatory approaches and direct involvement of PLWHA in the interventions brought confidence among PLWHA but were still suffering from self stigma and denial. They could see the human face of HIV/AIDS in those who had disclosed their status, who also bought the idea for the want of a longer and healthy life. Equally, the scaling up of outreach activity in the far to reach communities and forging of partnerships with the state and other key actors led to increased VCT services especially the men, increased adherence to drugs, reduced couple conflicts related to HIV/AIDS and record numbers of people coming out to disclose their status. State-civil society theories and Community Driven Development were used to argue the case for NGO interventions in development work in general and HIV/AIDS in particular. Also reviewed and discussed were the theories on conflict and post conflict reconstruction in relation to the situation in the north during war and now in post conflict situation. The research methodology used helped a lot in realising the required information need for this paper. The research was based on both primary and secondary data collection. Thirty seven respondents were interviewed using both FGD and semi-structured interviews with staff of the two local NGOs purposively selected and their beneficiaries plus some local government staff and other institutions. Most if not all of the analysis has been qualitative.