Putting our transition strategy into action
Avert is delivering on its commitment to transition its high impact digital health brands to new owners in East and Southern Africa.
Published on 05 September 2024 | Sarah Hand
Transition blog 2 of 3. You can read here blog 1 and blog 3 in this transition series.
Avert is delivering on its commitment to transition its high impact digital health brands, Boost and Be in the KNOW, to new owners in East and Southern Africa, along with financial resources to support these locally run organisations. After 38 successful years, Avert’s programmatic work will end in December 2024, with the organisation closing in April 2025.
For the past 38 years Avert has been a leading international HIV and sexual health organisation. Our work has supported efforts to build the knowledge, health literacy and agency of people most impacted by the global HIV epidemic, and of those working to support them. Our work has reached tens of millions of people over this time, providing them with evidence-based, trustworthy, empowering content and resources. The needs of our audiences and the wider HIV epidemic have been central to our work from the start – reaching them with relevant, destigmatizing materials in the places and spaces where they spend time, be that in a classroom, their homes, a clinic, a community centre or, over the last 25 years, online.
Time for change
Despite our ongoing success and achievements, we recognise that the HIV response, funding patterns, and the wider development sector are all changing. As a result, as shared in our first transition blog in April, we are clear we must also change and not leave things to chance. Putting the localisation agenda at the centre of our decision making, alongside the need to ensure our work continues to have a positive impact, required us to be objective and think impartially about the organisation and ways of working.
In recent years Avert’s work has increasingly focused on sub-Saharan Africa, a region where although good progress is being made, the HIV epidemic remains highly complex. We know that there is enormous talent and skill in organisations across this region that are able to carry on the work Avert has been doing. By transitioning our successful brands Boost and Be in the KNOW to organisations that are more closely rooted in the communities they serve and committed to change that supports them, we can be active participants in the localisation movement and support efforts by donors and policy makers to decolonise international development practices and financing.
The decision to transition and close was not taken lightly. But with the support of our staff, trustees, donors and partners, we are confident it is the right decision that will ensure our work continues to benefit millions of individuals, community health workers and health practitioners each year, and add value to the wider HIV response.
“ViiV Healthcare is pleased to support Avert’s proactive localisation strategy. This is a real example of an organisation putting its mission ahead of its own self-interest and the survival-at-all-cost mentality. This will ensure the continued delivery of the high-quality, impactful HIV and sexual health information Avert has built up, by organisations who share Avert’s values and are rooted in the communities they serve.”
How do we make the transition a success?
Through consultation with several other organisations who have attempted similar transitions in the past, we identified four key elements that need to be in place for the transitions to be successful:
- The transferred brands have to be in good health and performing well
- Potential transition partners have to see strong strategic value in the brand, to avoid it ending up as a standalone, siloed project
- Time has to be available to support a meaningful handover
- Most critically, there has to be funding in place to support the takeover organisation to run the product for at least the first year while they build their own resource mobilisation strategy
We have now addressed all four of these criteria thanks to the financial support of Vitol, Gilead Sciences, ViiV Healthcare and ViiV Healthcare: Positive Action, and we are on course to make the transition process a success.
A successful transition will ensure the cumulative investment in Avert’s work and its ongoing value is protected. It will also ensure our learning, resources, systems and products benefit organisations who share our values and who are passionate about the importance of sex-positive HIV and sexual health information for all.
We aim to complete the transition work by December 2024. In a third and final blog in this series we will share updates on the final stage of the transition and what we have learned, including a link to our legacy report that will celebrate Avert’s contribution to the HIV response. We will then carry out the necessary legal and governance work to wind up the charity between January and April 2025.
What are we handing over and to who?
Over the last four years Avert has been working on two successful digital health brands, Be in the KNOW and Boost. These brands have drawn on Avert’s years of experience putting our audiences at the centre, using human-centred design approaches, and incorporating behaviour change communication theory.
Our digital job aid for community health workers, Boost, will be handed over to two organisations – OPHID in Zimbabwe and LVCT Health in Kenya.
"Working with the Boost application has helped us a lot because it gives me confidence in assisting my clients on a daily basis. For example, if I come across a challenging question, I will reply to the application so that it guides me."
Our highly successful, sex positive, sexual health brand, Be in the KNOW, will be handed over to Well Made Strategy’s Kenya Comms Hub in Kenya.
“It has given me much courage to get treated before it’s too late.”
How you can still support:
Resource mobilisation remains critical to supporting a meaningful localisation agenda and ensuring sustainable HIV and sexual health solutions. We encourage funders and stakeholders to support our transition partners and their ongoing HIV and sexual health efforts beyond Avert’s closure. Avert is immensely grateful to the donors and partners who are already supporting this process.
Photo credit: Media Lens King/iStock. Photos are used for illustrative purposes. They do not imply health status or behaviour.