The Right to Care International division
Right to Care International is a division of the Right to Care group set up in 2016 to provide innovative tailor-made solutions to end the HIV pandemic in countries beyond South Africa’s borders.
EQUIP is the first African-led global health consortium supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to deliver rapid scale-up of innovative HIV treatment and prevention solutions in:
- Africa,
- Eastern Europe,
- the Caribbean and
- East Asia.
It is funded through a USAID grant, first awarded in 2015 and recently extended until 2021.
Right to Care International is a sub-recipient in two other global projects:
Right to Care is a core partner in the Meeting Targets and Maintaining Epidemic Control (EPiC) grant, a five-year global project funded by PEPFAR and USAID, which is dedicated to achieving and maintaining HIV epidemic control.
Data for Implementation (FI) is a five-year grant funded by PEPFAR through USAID since April 2019. It is implemented by Palladium, in partnership with Right to Care (RTC) and other core partners.
Localisation in Lesotho, Malawi and Zambia
Localisation is a priority for all PEPFAR-supported programmes. Right to Care International, through the EQUIP programme, has therefore fostered local capacity and established local non-profit entities in three countries in Africa.
Right to Care Zambia, Right to Care Malawi and Right to Care Lesotho are part of the Right to Care group.
Strategic partners
Other strategic partners providing support to the EQUIP consortium include:
the Health Economics and Epidemiology Research Office (HE²RO) of the Wits Health Consortium at Witwatersrand University
the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS(National Health Laboratory Service)) in South Africa
Boston University (BU) and
the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)
Since its establishment, the EQUIP consortium has been the central mechanism that manages:
finances from multiple funders
stakeholder relations
monitoring and evaluation
reporting
Key stake-holders include:
the Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator (OGAC)
USAID Washington
USAID in-country
ministries of health
local implementing partners
Localisation for sustainability
Right to Care International was set up as part of Right to Care’s strategy to:
localise its efforts in countries outside of South Africa
reach UNAIDS 95-95-95 target
build capacity in these territories
achieve HIV epidemic control
Being fully localised in Zambia, Malawi and Lesotho allows us to fulfil a key PEPFAR requirement: the sustainability of PEPFAR interventions to bring about strengthened and sustained healthcare services.
We have established in-country local partners and built capacity to ensure:
Right to Care International has now transitioned some of our sub-recipients to receive direct awards as prime recipients.
In Zambia, Malawi and Lesotho we are fully set-up as non-profit companies, each governed by a board of directors, comprising mostly local directors.
In each country, a mix of technical assistance and direct service delivery is provided:
- directly or
- through working in partnership with in-country implementing partners.
Our interventions cover:
- rapid test and start roll out,
- differentiated models of antiretroviral (ART) delivery with focus on Multi Month Scripting and Dispensing (MMSD) at both facility and community levels,
- Central Chronic Medicines and Drugs Distribution (CCMDD(Centralised Chronic Medicines Dispensing and Distribution)),
- increased HIV testing yield, initiation onto ART, retention on ART and viral suppression,
- treatment approaches that respond to the needs of key populations,
- innovative approaches to support the rapid scale up of viral load monitoring and
- health economics.
