Feature Story

Dr. César Antonio Núñez, UNAIDS
Regional Director for Latin
America, underlined the
importance of the spending
assessment tool for generating
strategic information for decision
making.

Understanding the magnitude of spending on AIDS programmes, the sources of such funding, and the activities supported by such expenditures is critically important to policymakers, programme planners, and international donors. Effective resource monitoring helps identify gaps in the response, improves the strategic ability of countries and donors to target resources most effectively, and helps measure the degree to which words of commitment on AIDS are matched by financial resources.

Working towards better tracking of AIDS spending in countries in Latin America, more than 50 representatives from the region joined in Panama for a specialist workshop designed to underline changes in the technical classification process for tracking AIDS spending and help countries make better use of the UNAIDS-designed National AIDS Spending Assessment (NASA) tool for their analysis.

Organized by UNAIDS, through its Regional Support Team for Latin America and the International Center for Technical Cooperation on AIDS (ICTC), the workshop also served as a platform for discussing challenges and problems faced by countries when implementing the spending assessments.

NASA is a methodology that identifies financing flows directed to HIV prevention and health care for AIDS. It also identifies funds directed to activities on education, social development and social security that are related to AIDS. The information provided through NASA helps identify how funds are being channeled to different groups of people and geographically which assists with the development of National Strategic Plans and advocacy actions.

Dr. César Antonio Núñez, UNAIDS Regional Director for Latin America, underlined the importance of the spending assessment tool for generating strategic information for decision making. “This is critical for countries to identify if the spending of their resources, both national and external, is undertaken in populations and areas recognized as priorities,” he said.

Carlos Passarelli, ICTC Director, emphasized that “the Centre supports this joint effort of countries in improving their capacities on planning and administration of resources because this is key for the sustainability of AIDS responses in the region”.