Number of people provided with socioeconomic strengthening services
How to use this indicator
HIV and AIDS interact with poverty on a national level, strain community safety nets and coping mechanisms, and destroy individual income and assets. Living with HIV makes it difficult for people to maintain regular employment, because the virus affects their physical and mental functioning as well as their ability to seek out appropriate care. HIV/AIDS can lead to poverty for the entire family owing to weakened family and societal support systems and depleted family income. Children are often required to pick up the slack of incapacitated caregivers, which could lead them to drop out of formal education.
Programs that aim to reduce the burden of HIV/AIDS, or reduce risks of acquiring HIV/AIDS, can use this indicator to monitor any socioeconomic strengthening activity provided to households and individuals. Economic strengthening includes numerous types of interventions to reduce the economic vulnerability of individuals and empower them to make better choices for themselves and their families, including members of key populations who are at heightened risk. Activities include saving, obtaining credit, income-generating activities, jobs, cash transfers, savings groups, and vocational training. Information can be used to identify the poorest individuals and households, though economic support should be provided to vulnerable individuals, regardless of their status in relation to other beneficiaries, unless they are able to financially sustain themselves and their families and their treatment.
Numerator
Number of adults and children who received socioeconomic strengthening services during the reporting period
Note: number of households is alternative language for this indicator, especially for vulnerable children programs. Although some countries track this information by counting the number of households that received services, it is advisable to track the total number of individuals who received support, because people living with HIV who do not have children could also be eligible for support. Key populations would also be eligible for this support, regardless of HIV status, depending on level of economic instability.
Unit of measure
Number
Calculation
Sum results across reporting period
Method of measurement
This indicator should count the total number of individuals, regardless of age, who have received some form of economic strengthening at least once during the reporting period. See the list of eligible forms of interventions below:
- Cash transfer (conditional or nonconditional)
- Vocational or business skills training
- Loan
- Bond
- Savings group
- Credit
- Microfinance
- Apprenticeship
- Business incentives
- Income generation in cash or kind (agricultural inputs)
- Material or financial support for shelter
- Other form of economic support
Funding or support services for food and education should be counted towards respective indicators defined here for food and here for education. Household eligibility for external support should be determined based on the severity of poverty and vulnerability. Community workers can conduct household vulnerability assessments to ascertain levels of household economic instability. The information for this indicator is obtained by asking beneficiaries directly whether they received any cash, goods, or vocational training of any kind during the reporting period and then clarifying which services were received. Community workers can track community-based services provided to individuals by counting the number of participants in savings groups, for instance, who are either vulnerable to, affected by, or living with HIV.
Data sources
This information is mainly tracked by vulnerable children programs through vulnerable children service forms, graduation checklists, beneficiary support forms, and household assessment and monitoring forms. Key population programs often track those individuals who have received some form of vocational training, loan, savings, or cash transfer as a result of program funds.
Disaggregation
- Age (<1 year, 1–4 years, 5–9 years, 10–14 years, and 15–17 years for children; 18–24 years, 25–49 years, and 50+ years for adults)
- Sex
- Type of support provided (see list above)
- Key population type (sex workers, men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs, transgender people)
Data quality considerations
This information should be tracked regularly, because household economic status of individuals living with, affected by, and vulnerable to HIV can change frequently and drastically. This indicator does not account for frequency, intensity, or quality of support services provided, and supervision should ensure services sustainably improve the financial security of households. Double counting should be avoided (such as of people receiving services more than once or from numerous sources).
Reporting frequency
Community workers should collect this information regularly, but they should monitor progress monthly with support from their supervisors. The indicator should be reported on a quarterly basis.
Data element
Socioeconomic strengthening services
Category
Vulnerable Children, Key Populations, HIV Prevention
References
Economic strengthening. (2016). Retrieved from http://ovcsupport.org/resource/economic-strengthening/
Taraphdar, P., Guha, R. T., Haldar, D., Chatterjee, A., Dasgupta, A., Saha, B., & Mallik, S. (2011). Socioeconomic consequences of HIV/AIDS in the family system. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3329095/
UNAIDS. (2015. UNAIDS: AIDSinfo - Global AIDS Response Progress Reporting (GARPR). Retrieved from https://undatacatalog.org/dataset/aidsinfo-global-aids-response-progress-reporting-garpr
