Orientation Workshop
2-6 May, Addis Ababa

Read the full text of the Workshop Report as a MS-Word file (1.4MB) or as an Adobe Acrobat file (710KB).

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

PURPOSE OF PROJECT

The aim of this UNAIDS-led project, Aids in Africa: Scenarios for the Future, is to build a set of pan-African scenarios looking over a twenty-year time horizon, which will enable the key issues, challenges and dilemmas regarding HIV/AIDS to be surfaced and explored. These scenarios represent a unique opportunity to bring together divergent views and perspectives in order to create an informed and shared understanding of the issues involved and to help activate a broad-based response from all segments of society. The project has four distinct phases, with ongoing research, communications and administration activities continuous throughout. The orientation workshop is the first of three scenario-building workshops, and takes place in this initial phase. The fourth phase involves the launch and roll-out of the scenarios.

PHASE 1: ORIENTATION WORKSHOP

The emphasis of the first phase of the project is to undertake research in order to produce a clear understanding of the underlying issues, views and perspectives that different individuals identify about the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa and its development over the next twenty years. The purpose of the Orientation Workshop was to map out the issues and to produce a jointly owned overview of the problem and to examine in more depth different points of view. It also represents a crucial phase in building trust amongst the participants and with the Core Team and in securing the wider legitimacy, interest and usability of the scenarios themselves. This executive summary sets out what has been achieved and the next steps that need to be taken.

KEY FINDINGS:

The Orientation Workshop used a range of divergent exploratory processes to enable the critical issues spanning many subject areas to be identified and surfaced. The discussions were wide-ranging and frank and a number of undiscussed and ’undiscussible’ issues were raised, which have been set out in greater detail in the enclosed report. The critical issues were grouped into five main thematic areas or ‘domain groups’.

1. HIV/AIDS Research and Implementation
2. Demography
3. Governance and Security
4. Economic Development
5. Socio-Cultural Diversity of Africa

Participants divided themselves into these groups to undertake more detailed analysis. Within each of the domain groups certain key variables—factors which are both highly uncertain yet likely to have high impact on how HIV/AIDS might evolve over the next 20 years—alongside many other factors that will also play a role have been identified. These key variables, and the focal questions raised by each group, are set out in the table below:

In addition to the key variables and focal questions identified, there were discussions about a number of issues that are not normally raised in relation to HIV/AIDS. Some of these issues have been explored in other meetings and fora, while other issues which have not been explored and—for a variety of different reasons—remain difficult to discuss are ‘undiscussibles’, relating to aspects of sexual behaviour, neo-colonialism, racism, etc. These issues cut across the domain groups, and the main themes are set out in the table below:

In addition to identifying the key variables, focal questions, and key ‘undiscussed/undiscussibles’, participants were asked to identify areas where further information is required, and linkages (action, reaction, cause, effect, two-way, one-way, etc.). They also sought to identify resources (persons, documentation, conferences) that could help in responding to understanding gaps. This detailed information is set out in the workshop report.

NEXT STEPS:

The Orientation Workshop was successful in achieving a common language and in commencing to develop an understanding of HIV/AIDS and its impacts from a variety of different perspectives across Africa and beyond. It has identified a wide range of relevant issues and variables that might be explored at the Scenario Building Workshop.

Whilst a number of undiscussed issues were raised, several of these have been explored in other fora and the challenge is to bring these insights into the ongoing dialogue between participants. The challenge is to be more selective about the key variables that will be used to build the scenarios and to focus on those that will be most critical in shaping the future—those with the highest impacts consequential for HIV/AIDS in Africa. There is also the challenge of sorting through the identified high certainty, high impact variables—some of which are linked to highly uncertain variables.

The aim is to continue to develop the exploration of the domains between now and the next workshop. This will help to ensure that the scenarios that are developed are firmly rooted in knowledge and understanding of the key relevant variables and their interrelationships, as well as the overall systemic dynamics.

Participants have been invited to enter into networking with one another and the Project Team. They have been enabled access to an e-workspace on the internet that will allow them to continue to dialogue. The Project Team will provide support to the participants as they undertake more focussed discussions and research on the areas identified as critical building blocks for the scenarios and explore the ‘undiscussible’ issues of relevance. Key topics requiring further reflection by each domain group (which will be supported by the Project Team) include:

• Provide concise, precise synopsis of the existing perspectives relevant to the issues in each domain (in the form of a series of short papers);
• List and prioritise the key variables that will shape and influence how these issues might play out over the next twenty years. In particular, research the high impact, certain variables and identify the possible end-states for each high impact, critical uncertainty variable;
• Identify linkages to other domain areas;
• Consider what is ‘undiscussible’ as opposed to ‘undiscussed at the workshop’ and suggest ways for exploring undiscussibles;
• Contribute key findings to a two-way meeting involving representatives of all the domain groups which will aim to synthesise and prioritise key variables, linkages in to an initial ‘systems map’ that will be presented for discussion at the start of the Building Workshop. This meeting will also discuss and agree the way forward on critical ‘undiscussibles’;
• Prepare a debrief of key learnings as pre-reading and possible presentation at the next workshop.

Information on the process and some of the documentation will also be available on this site, for universal access.