Monitoring and Evaluation systems and activities are key to tracking what is being done in HIV prevention, treatment and care and whether these activities are making a difference.
Credit: globalhivmeinfo.org

Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) systems and activities are key to tracking what is being done in the field of HIV prevention, treatment and care and whether these activities are making a difference. A new platform (www.globalhivmeinfo.org) now allows M&E professionals worldwide to access and share information about the AIDS epidemic and the response in a ‘one-stop-shop’.

The webportal includes an extensive and continuously growing number of documents and resources for download in a digital library, interactive calendars of events and training activities and news flashes. The users are able to quickly find information and tools by searching the portal or the digital library, or can tap the wealth of information available on M&E-related sites throughout the internet by using the portal’s external search engine.

Additional features of the portal are social bookmarking functions and automatic alerts and RSS feeds. It also provides mechanisms for communicating with other M&E professionals and its collaborative features enable users to create virtual teams and workspaces. “The webportal is a powerful ‘one-stop-shop’ for information and resources on the M&E of the AIDS epidemic and response. It is a way for M&E professionals to gain exposure to exciting new M&E information, as well as share their own work with the global M&E community,” said Deborah Rugg, UNAIDS Chief, Monitoring and Evaluation Division.

A collaborative effort

The M&E webportal is the product of collaboration among various international agencies that focus on M&E for HIV-related programs, and its purpose is to serve M&E professionals working in local, national, and global capacities. These include field officers placed in-country by international partner agencies; their country counterparts working in national, regional, and local government agencies and non-governmental organizations; staff located at headquarters of international partner agencies; and other practitioners interested in M&E of AIDS programs.

Towards strengthening the “Third One”

As a platform for information exchange within the M&E community working on AIDS with its many partners and actors, the webportal also contributes to strengthening the “Third One” - One agreed country-level Monitoring and Evaluation System - and to ensuring that monitoring and evaluation approaches are coordinated and are generating reliable and timely information on the epidemic and the response.