The International HIV/AIDS Alliance, as part of the Communities Responding to the HIV/AIDS Epidemic (CORE) Initiative, is working closely with government and civil society partners to deliver HIV projects in Uganda in its new role as Technical Management Agent for HIV and AIDS projects supported by Uganda's Civil Society Fund.

The new role will see the Alliance working with Uganda's Ministry of Health, its Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development and local government to develop technical support systems to scale-up community-based HIV prevention, treatment, care and support services. The agreement will also see the Alliance encouraging the use of new and innovative approaches to HIV as well as continuing to support orphans and other vulnerable children.

The Alliance forms part of the Communities Responding to the HIV/AIDS Epidemic (CORE) Initiative, a consortium made up of CARE International, the International Center for Research on Women, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health/Center for Communications Programs and the Alliance. The CORE Initiative focuses on building the capacity of government and civil society to deliver services, focusing on creating a "rational, competent and permanent structure through which the needs of orphans and vulnerable children will be met - today and well into the future."

The CORE Initiative's four areas of work are:

* strengthening central and district level capacity in the public sector * improving availability and quality of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) and HIV prevention services * supporting the Civil Society Fund * technical and financial assistance to civil society organisations.

The Civil Society Fund was developed by the Government of Uganda, civil society and partners to ensure that civil society HIV, tuberculosis and malaria services are harmonized with the government's national plans. Through the establishment of the Civil Society Fund service delivery grants, CORE has been able to increase understanding of OVC and HIV prevention programming requirements and challenges in the context of scaling up coverage of comprehensive services to OVC. CORE will build on these successes to support scale up of civil society HIV and AIDS work as the new HIV Technical Management Agent.