The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief - April 2007 Newsletter

Daniel Levitt, HIV/AIDS and Health Program Manager for USAID in Vietnam, has been recognized by the Government of Vietnam with two awards for his work in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Ho Chi Minh City awarded Levitt the Citizen’s Medal for “his great contributions to the fight against HIV/AIDS in Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh City.”

Vietnam’s Ministry of Health also recognized Levitt for his work. They awarded him a Medal of Honor “for the health of the people of Vietnam” and “for his support toward fighting the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Vietnam.”

The awards speak highly of Levitt’s work and the success he has had coordinating with the Government of Vietnam to address HIV/AIDS. It is rare for foreigners to receive such recognition.

Levitt has worked in Vietnam implementing USAID programs funded by the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (Emergency Plan/PEPFAR) for more than four years. As the HIV/AIDS and Health Program manager for USAID in Vietnam, Levitt works closely with the Vietnam PEPFAR Coordinator, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Department of Defense, and the U.S. Embassy in Vietnam to manage the Emergency Plan jointly.

Levitt was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is most recently from New York City. He received his bachelors in Archaeology and Psychology from Columbia University in 1997, and his masters in Public Health from Columbia University in 2000, where he focused on Refugee and Maternal and Child Health.

His professional experience in public health includes health communications work in Mexico (1992), the Dominican Republic (1993), Ecuador (1994), Paraguay (1995) and Costa Rica (1999) with Amigos de las Americas, an international health organization, asthma research and education in New York City (1999-2001) with the Center for Population and Family Health, and work on the development and analysis of the emergency relief assistance program (SUMA) with the Pan American Health Organization (2000).

Following his masters program, Mr. Levitt initiated his career with the U.S. Government in 2001 as a Michigan Population Fellow placed at USAID/Cambodia, where he focused on Maternal and Child Health and HIV/AIDS. He moved to USAID/Vietnam as the manager of the Health and Disability portfolio in 2002 and became the HIV/AIDS and Health Program Manager in 2003.

“When the history of global public health is written, the launch of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (Emergency Plan/PEPFAR) … will be remembered as one of the boldest and most important actions ever,” Ambassador Mark Dybul, U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, said during a recent policy discussion on global HIV/AIDS.

More than 100 students, faculty, and local community members from the Washington, D.C. area attended Dybul’s presentation, “Hope and History: Is the Response to HIV/AIDS Transformational?”

The April 3, 2007 speech was held on the George Washington University campus in the Marvin Center’s Continental Ballroom. Howard University and Georgetown University co-sponsored the event.

Dr. Ruth Katz, Dean of George Washington University’s School of Public Health Services, introduced Ambassador Dybul. In her opening remarks, Katz acknowledged the Emergency Plan’s transformational role in responding to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

During his remarks, Dybul discussed the critical role PEPFAR plays in international development comparing the program to the Marshall Plan. “Not since the Marshall Plan has the world seen such a massive commitment to international development,” Dybul said.

He explained how PEPFAR’s philosophy of partnership with host nations has produced results that were once believed to be “unthinkable.” As of September 30, 2006, 822,000 people in the 15 focus countries were receiving antiretroviral treatment. Before PEPFAR started, it is estimated that only 50,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa were on treatment. Dybul credited the success of the program to the “compassion and generosity of the American people,” as well as the host governments and health workers on the ground.

While Dybul spoke about the impressive results PEPFAR has achieved to date, he also reminded the audience of the massive work still to be done. He encouraged the next generation to “get involved and get others involved … because this pandemic and global development needs will be with us for a long time.”

With support from the Government of Rwanda, Kigali, Rwanda will host the 2007 HIV/AIDS Implementers’ Meeting from June 16-19, 2007. The meeting seeks to build on successes in the global fight against HIV/AIDS. Approximately 1,500 delegates are expected to attend the meeting, with the vast majority traveling from developing countries in Africa and other regions of the world.

The meeting is co-sponsored by the Government of Rwanda; President Bush’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief; the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria; the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS; the World Bank; the United Nations Children’s Fund; and the World Health Organization. In addition, the Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (GNP+) is serving as the official Advisory Group, helping to ensure representation of people living with HIV/AIDS as expert implementers.

The goals of the meeting are to:

• Widely share lessons learned during the implementation of multisectoral HIV/AIDS programs, with a particular focus on scale-up of prevention, treatment and care programs, building local capacity, quality, and coordination among partners;
• Catalyze an open dialogue about future directions of HIV/AIDS programs with a strong emphasis on implementation; and
• Directly impact HIV/AIDS program implementation in the coming year through the diffusion of lessons learned and best practices.

Many important implementation best practices are being developed, and this meeting is an opportunity to disseminate them as broadly as possible.

For more information on the 2007 HIV/AIDS Implementers’ Meeting, please visit www.hivimplementers.org.

In Rwanda, President Bush’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (Emergency Plan/PEPFAR), is co-managed through a steering committee chaired by the Government of Rwanda with multi-sector representation from numerous ministries and civil society groups. Dr. Agnes Binagwaho, Executive Secretary of the Government of Rwanda’s National AIDS Control Commission, calls the PEPFAR Steering Committee “a new form of North-South cooperation.”

“This co-management is a true partnership, in which all partners share capacities and knowledge and create a favorable environment for success, because the Government of Rwanda leads, and coordinates the overall response to HIV/AIDS with the involvement of civil society and all institutions concerned,” Dr. Bingawaho says. “This results in better coordination and utilization of resources through joint planning, monitoring, and evaluation of PEPFAR and other projects…. We’re succeeding in the ‘three ones’ – one governing body, one action plan, one monitoring and evaluation plan.”

Co-management of Emergency Plan implementation enables stakeholder ownership and facilitates rapid scale-up of HIV/AIDS services. By focusing on the relationship among the different program elements, such as community-clinical linkages, and by including local government and counterparts in the planning and management process, the program improves quality and ensures that PEPFAR-supported programs are sustainable and well coordinated with other programs, such as those of the Global Fund.