Paul Booth's Professional details
Current Position(s)
Health and Human Development consultant | Human Development | World Bank
Pretoria, South Africa | 2011 - present
Previous Position(s)
National Partnership Manager | Shout-it-Now
Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa | 2011 - 2011
Marketing, Advertising and Public Relations
- Shout-it-Now is a South African NGO which operates on the basis of business principles to performance-manage their approach to HIV Prevention in Southern Africa.
- It uses technology, celebrities and rewards to educate school learners, out-of-school youth and young adults - the proportion of the population anticipated to account for 64.18 percent of all new HIV infections in 2011 - and to encourage them to take an HIV test with them.
- They operate in four Provinces in South Africa, reach approximately 130,000 clients per year and achieve in excess of a 98 percent testing uptake rate.
As the National Partnership Manager I was chiefly responsible for securing funding and for managing our relationships with local and national government departments (particularly the Departments of Health, Education, and Correctional Services), with the South African National AIDS Council and Provincial AIDS Councils, with donors and development partners, with research organisations and with partner and potential partner organisations.
Other
In the 2009 financial year South Africa received more than USD560million in financial support from PEPFAR. Although South Africa is by far the leading recipient of PEPFAR funding, almost 94 percent of this funding - at the time equivalent to the South African government’s entire contribution to the national AIDS response - was disbursed through non-governmental channels.
Since inception the PEPFAR programme in South Africa has operated for seven years without a government-to-government agreement identifying the focus and priority areas of PEPFAR funding.
Globally, PEPFAR is transitioning from an emergency response to building in-country sustainability and improving the effectiveness of HIV prevention.
- In South Africa the drafting of a government-to-government agreement required assembling the appropriate teams from across nine South African government departments at the forefront of the country response as well as across the five PEPFAR agencies. - My role in this process was to assist the South African government to formulate, prioritise and agree national HIV and AIDS response priority areas and then to work with both teams to jointly draft and prepare an agreement for the signature of the U.S. Secretary of State and South African Minister of International Relations and Foreign Affairs.
As the lead writer of the Partnership Framework agreement it was my role to
- Meet with the nine government departments and work with each of them to identify challenges, opportunities, and areas within which to strengthen current interventions.
- Work with the PEPFAR implementing agencies in South Africa to understand their strengths and priorities and try to identify synergies and areas of common interest.
- Conduct a desk review of the policies and strategies of the South African government and its various implementing agencies for overcoming the HIV and TB epidemics.
- Prepare a draft set of objectives for the country-to-country objectives.
- Prepare drafts of the Partnership Framework agreement and present their various iterations to joint meetings of high level South African government and U.S. government officials.
- Work as part of a small working group to prepare a final Partnership Framework agreement for the signature of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Maite Nkoana-Mashabane on 14th December 2010
- Agreement available here
www.pepfar.gov
/frameworks/southafrica/index.htm
Independent Consultant | Self
Johannesburg, South Africa | 2010 - 2010
Other
HEARD - The HIV Economics and Research Division of the University of KwaZulu Natal
- Rapporteur and principal report writer for the SADC and World Bank Regional HIV and Economics Conference: Sustaining HIV and AIDS responses in the context of shrinking resources in the SADC region
- Assisted in the facilitation of a 1-week training course on the use of Research and Strategic Information to strengthen national HIV responses.
The Foundation for Professional Development
- Conducting separate focus groups with school learners, educators and with parents & care givers about HIV counselling and testing within school settings or of young people.
- Facilitator of a 1 day workshop that brought together high-ranking officials from the Departments of Health and Education as well as civil society advocacy groups, NGOs, research organisations, educators and international non-governmental bodies to discuss the impending Schools HIV Counselling and Testing campaign in order to agree on a foundational set of guiding principles for HCT in schools.
Government, Public Administration and Defence
- Prepare a concept paper for SANAC, Cabinet and the President on mass HIV counselling and testing as the gateway to expanding the HIV treatment programme and the entry-point for effective HIV-prevention interventions in South Africa.
-Develop the initial strategy document for South Africa’s mass HIV counselling and testing (HCT) campaign (launched by the President of South Africa on 15th April 2009)
-Contribute to preparing presentations and speaking notes for the Minister of Health, SANAC Chairperson (South Africa's Deputy President), SAANC Deputy Chairperson and the SANAC CEO.
- Provide research support to the CEO.
- Work with the CEO and senior management team to establish SANAC as a formal public sector institution [not completed].
- Work with the CEO, senior management team and consultants to conduct a strategic organisational review, a mid-term review of South Africa’s National Strategic Plan for HIV, AIDS and TB, 2007-2011, several reviews of components of the national HIV and TB responses, and to develop an organisational workplan for SANAC for the next 18 months.
- Use the findings of these reviews to prepare a framework of a 3-year SANAC workplan.
- Assist the Resource Mobilisation and Donor Coordination manager to prepare funding proposals for South Africa’s national AIDS response and to develop/strengthen relations with key development partners.
- Hold consultations with key partners, implementers, government departments and provincial and district AIDS councils on the national HCT campaign strategy and its implementation.
Government, Public Administration and Defence
The AIDS Law Project (ALP) and Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) played a key role in pressing for the restructuring of SANAC to include representation from sectors of society. This led to the election of the ALP executive director to lead civil society as the Deputy Chairperson of SANAC. Because the SANAC secretariat was under-capacitated, under-funded and located in the office of the discredited former health minister the deputy chairperson sourced funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for a staff member to support his responsibilities until such time as the Secretariat could be strengthened to play a more active administrative and technical support role.
My responsibilities were to
- Provide research support to and prepare concept papers and discussion documents on key issues for the Deputy Chair.
- Prepare presentations and speaking notes.
- Liaise with and build relations with key stakeholders (SANAC sectors) on the council - labour, business, government departments, public institutions, NGOs, CBOs, and other civil society organisations.
- Prepare regular reports to all stakeholders on progress made in the national HIV response (including performance against key indicators).
- Liaise closely with the office of the SANAC Chairperson (South African Deputy President) on behalf of the SANAC Deputy Chairperson.
- Preparation, consultation, negotiation, and fund-sourcing for the re-establishment of the SANAC Secretariat and the employment of a senior management team to staff it.
Key achievements:
- The establishment of high level, technically competent secretariat for SANAC.
- A decision by SANAC that South Africa should implement a national male circumcision programme.
- A decision by SANAC that the department of Social Development should establish a committee to re-examine the social grants programme (particularly the use of disability grants for those living with HIV) and should consider the introduction of a chronic illness grant.
