The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have committed $338 million to prevent the spread of HIV in India, through its India AIDS Initiative, Avahan.  Avahan’s HIV prevention programs focus on those most at risk of contracting and spreading HIV, in the six highest-prevalence states and along the nation’s highways in India. Avahan grantees are expanding access to proven HIV prevention programs using a comprehensive, evidence-based approach, which includes behavior change and condom promotion programs; community mobilization; and treatment of sexually transmitted infections. The program also includes supporting initiatives in capacity raising, policy and advocacy and knowledge building in the areas of research and impact measurement.

Avahan’s partners have developed strategies to undertake HIV prevention efforts at scale with high risk groups and over the last four years they have learned about what works best in different contexts by implementing programmes addressing over 320,000 individuals. Central to this effort has been a community mobilization approach that has been designed with a discrete evaluation component.

At this stage of the Avahan program has collected significant data and designed a logic model for community mobilization that offers detailed opportunities for carrying out rigorous program evaluation to inform policy. In addition, Avahan has community mobilization costing data, qualitative research and operational learning that is relevant for other prevention responses where programming for high risk groups and/or young women needs to be undertaken. The community mobilization evaluation portfolio, comprised of a set of discrete efforts, must be managed to leverage what has been done in Avahan to inform public health and development globally. Moving forward the analysis of the community mobilization effort in Avahan should be geared to provide insights useful for the foundation, colleagues at the World Bank, the Department for International Development and in policy processes including the World Health Organization guidelines.