Health, Nutrition and HIV & AIDS

The UN is partnering with the government, nongovernmental organizations, and donors to combat the spread of HIV and ensure equitable access to high impact, cost-effective health and nutrition interventions for vulnerable populations. To realize the strategic objectives within the UNDAF Health and Nutrition sectors the UN in Lesotho works with the Government to formulate policies, develop strategic documents and technical guidelines. The UN also works to strengthen the capacity of all health-related institutions and civil society organizations at national, district and local/community levels to improve service delivery.

In an effort to improve a multi-sectoral coordination of the HIV response in Lesotho, the UN family provided financial and technical support towards strengthening of the National AIDS Commission through support for development of foundation documents (NAC coordination framework, business plan, NAC Act) and orientation of partners and Board of Commissioners. As part of the Country Coordinating Mechanism of the Global Fund, the UN facilitated and participated in the grant signing of $66million for HIV and TB programmes. Programmatically, the UN family also supported the adaptation and launch of the Test and Treat strategy; training of 1,028 health care workers and sensitization of 3,716 community leaders on Test and Treat strategy, and development of ARV guidelines for prevention and treatment. Further, the UN family provided nutritional support aimed at 10,088 HIV and TB patients and mobilized $2.35million additional funding from PEPFAR and $800,000 from Global Fund to improve the nutrition status of those on treatment in Maseru, Leribe, Mohale’s Hoek, Mafeteng and Berea.  The UN Family also supported the finalization of the Legal Environment Assessment on HIV in Lesotho (LEA) which was launched in November 2016

Budget (2013-2018): US$ 89,829,300

Mobilized (2013-2016): US$ 43,159,058

Funding Gap (2017-2018): US$ 46,670,242