Mozambique

With funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), RISE is working in select countries, including Mozambique, to address the COVID-19 pandemic. In line with ministry of health priorities in each country, RISE’s COVID-19 response support may include: assisting in the planning and rollout of national vaccine plans, including ensuring health care workers are prepared to implement and monitor this plan; providing focused and clinically relevant capacity building for clinicians providing COVID-19 case management; strengthening the oxygen ecosystem; and supporting health care workers in oxygen conservation, rationalization and non-invasive respiratory care.

RISE is a five-year global project—funded by the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and USAID—that works with countries to achieve a shared vision of attaining and maintaining epidemic control, with stronger local partners capable of managing and achieving results through sustainable, self-reliant and resilient health systems. The project is led by Jhpiego with the following partners: ICAP at Columbia University, Management Sciences for Health, Anova, BAO Systems, Johns Hopkins University Center for Public Health and Human Rights, and Mann Global Health. For the COVID-19 ventilator technical assistance effort, RISE is also collaborating with the University of California San Francisco, World Federation of Societies of Anesthesiologists (via the GH STAR project), FHI 360 (via the EpiC Project) and Johns Hopkins University emergency medicine and critical care staff.

Through this project, funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Jhpiego continues its longstanding partnership with the Ministry of Health, National AIDS Council and other implementing partners to tailor and expand person-centered differentiated service delivery for HIV prevention. The project supports the MOH and other key stakeholders for the implementation of high-quality, evidence-based and sustainable facility- and community-based services addressing gender-based violence and cervical cancer prevention (i.e., screening, prevention and treatment of pre-cancerous lesions). In addition, Jhpiego is supporting client-centered services for voluntary medical male circumcision in Gaza and Sofala provinces, while prioritizing implementation of integrated male services.

Funded by the U.S. Department of Defense HIV/AIDS Prevention Program, this project emphasizes capacity-building of the Mozambican armed forces, or FADM, at all levels to independently continue implementation of HIV programs at their health sites, which provide health care to the military, their families and civilians in the surrounding areas. The project supports FADM to increase access and uptake of: HIV prevention interventions, including voluntary medical male circumcision; high-quality, targeted HIV testing services and linkage to HIV care and treatment; and client-centered integrated HIV care and treatment services. It also aims to strengthen FADM capacity to scale up viral load testing coverage and viral load suppression, as well as enhancing their technical and operational capacity to manage quality laboratory services for HIV/TB.

With funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, Associação ELOS and Jhpiego are implementing a three-year project to scale up VMMC services for men aged 15 to 49 years in selected sites in Manica and Tete Provinces of Mozambique. These services will be delivered by Associação ELOS, a local nongovernmental organization, using an integrated service delivery approach to HIV prevention and treatment to routinely deliver high-quality VMMC services. The overall expected result is for 80% of men aged 15 to 29 years old to obtain high-quality VMMC services in targeted sites, and that increasing numbers of youth and adult men in the target age group are voluntarily coming for the service. To achieve this goal, the project is incorporating a comprehensive VMMC package, including VMMC procedures, HIV testing and counseling, condom promotion, sexually transmitted infection management and undertaking “active” referrals to care and treatment services. The project is also strengthening linkages across HIV service points within facilities, between facilities and between communities and facilities to identify VMMC-eligible men, inform and counsel them and orient them to the closest VMMC service. Jhpiego’s role is to provide technical/programmatic support and capacity-building to ELOS, applying its local expertise and experience as a central VMMC partner in Mozambique since 2009.

The Government of Mozambique awarded Jhpiego a World Bank-funded contract as part of its Integrated Feeder Road Development Project, the objective of which is to rehabilitate and enhance road infrastructure to improve mobility, thereby strengthening livelihoods in local communities. The World Bank and Government of Mozambique recognize that factors related to construction programs (e.g., influx of construction workers, changes in power dynamics, land redistribution) can exacerbate the risk of gender-based violence (GBV), sexual exploitation and abuse, and sexual harassment in both public and private settings. Jhpiego is working in the northern provinces of Mozambique to mitigate these risks and respond to occurrences of sexual violence and abuse by: 1) providing capacity building and assessing the GBV risk and response capacity of the project’s stakeholders; 2) establishing a GBV mitigation action plan and then monitoring the effectiveness of mitigation measures; 3) raising awareness of the obligations of construction workers under the code of conduct within the affected communities; and 4) responding to sexual exploitation/abuse and sexual harassment cases and monitoring their reporting.