To reach ambitious global targets for HIV, including UNAIDS’ 90-90-90 goals, efforts to scale-up HIV care and treatment must focus on key areas of impact, including the efficient use of data to achieve sustainable results.

In Zimbabwe, where 15 percent of adults are estimated to be living with HIV, there are substantial opportunities for collecting and using high-quality health-related data to inform the scale-up of HIV programs.

With new funding from PEPFAR through the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), ICAP will partner with Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Health and Child Care (MOHCC) to strengthen capacity across the health system to collect and use strategic information (SI) to guide an evidence-based, national HIV response.

Through this five-year award, ICAP will provide technical assistance to MOHCC and other institutions in the country to plan and coordinate SI activities, strengthen monitoring and evaluation of the national HIV response, and improve systems to plan and conduct surveys, surveillance, impact and costing studies, and program evaluations to characterize the HIVepidemic and effectiveness of the response.

This new award builds on ICAP’s current work related to the Zimbabwe Population-based HIV Impact Assessment (ZIMPHIA), a household-based survey to characterize HIVprevalence and incidence in the population, as well as to measure the impact achieved to date.

“We look forward to continued collaboration with Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Health and Child Care,” said Dr. Tiffany Harris, ICAP director of strategic information, and principal investigator of the project. “This is an opportunity to implement best practices for health information systems, an effort that will hopefully inform programs as well as enhance the quality of the services.”