The Power of Partnership:
Engaging communities and researchers
Engaging and listening to our partners, especially women who may benefit from additional HIV prevention options, is at the heart of IPM’s work. In 2019, IPM continued to expand the reach of Inside My Purse, a blog for and by young women in Africa to discuss topics of sexual and reproductive health, and launched a companion Facebook page. Young women also engaged with the initiative in person at the Women Deliver conference in Vancouver in May.
IPM and its partners continued to advance scientific understanding of HIV prevention, presenting at the 9th SA AIDS Conference in Durban, the 10th International AIDS Society conference in Mexico City, and the 20th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA) in Kigali.
Additional outreach in 2019 included:
- Engaging over 5,000 women and men in educational sessions and community dialogues, including disseminating results of the ring OLEs and hosting HIV prevention workshops for higher education students with IPM partners.
- Updating advocacy and civil society partners on the dapivirine ring and working with them to prepare for the product’s potential market introduction.
- Participating in health innovation events hosted by USAID, European and Canadian governments, the Global Health Technologies Coalition and the South African Health Technologies Advocacy Coalition.
- With other product development partnerships (PDPs), co-hosting a World Health Summit side session on European investment in global health research and development.
- Participating in the launch of a collaboration with other PDPs, WHO, the Global Fund and donors to address bottlenecks to health innovation access.
As the dapivirine ring moves toward potential introduction, we look forward to continuing collaborations and building new ones.
