DOL ILO FUNDED PROGRAM IN BARBADOS WINDS DOWN

UNCLAS BRIDGETOWN 000077 SIPDIS C O R R E C T E D C O P Y (PORTION MARKINGS ADDED) SIPDIS SENSITIVE DOL for Chatenia Gay, DRL/IL for Gabriela Rigg E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ELAB BEXP ECON KHIV ILO LAB BB XL SUBJECT: DOL ILO FUNDED PROGRAM IN BARBADOS WINDS DOWN ¶1. (U) Summary: In December, 2007, DOL funding for the ILO/DOL HIV AIDS in the Workplace program ended in Barbados. The ILO program held a workshop in November 2007 to discuss the results of the program and to look at next steps towards setting up a domestically funded successor program. Key recommendations from the workshop included: tailoring the message to fit the audience, designing programs to target youth, and appropriate training of peer educators. Embassy Bridgetown continues to be engaged in HIV/AIDS programs including AIDS in the Workplace programs. Embassy Bridgetown Laboffs served on the project advisory committee from the inception until the end of the project. End Summary ¶2. (U) The ILO/USDOL HIV/AIDS Workplace Education Program hosted a three-day Workshop," Expanding Circles of Sharing - Dissemination Workshop" November 21-23, 2007 in Barbados. The Workshop presented the project's achievements, outputs, good practice and sustainability plan to the national stakeholders. ¶3. (U) The workshop discussed the achievements of the Barbados project, lessons learned and the way forward, challenges and lessons learned from programs at the enterprise level, and conducted a review of effective monitoring and evaluation strategies. The workshop also discussed the main findings from the impact survey of the Barbados Program. The workshop also considered the resource mobilization required to transition towards a domestically sustained program as the ILO/DOL funding stream ended. ILO committed funding as a bridge financing package to enable the program to continue in the interim. The program director will be working with the social partners to gain both governmental and private sector funding. ¶4. (U) The workshop ended with specific recommendations going forward: ¶A. A successor program should be considered to facilitate tailoring of the message appropriately for the specific workplace, to establish structures that persons with HIV/AIDS would know where they could find support, and to encourage private sector organizations to develop enterprise solutions for informal sector problems. ¶B. Effective methods should be used to reach the youth with the message about HIV/AIDS drawing from all sectors - entertainers, sportsmen, churches, households, and blue collar workers. C: Appropriate training of Peer Educators should be intensified to ensure that there are health and safety committees with continuity of the key aspects of the program in the workplace. ¶5. (U) Embassy Bridgetown remains engaged in the HIV/AIDS fight in the region. For FY'07 the USAID HIV/AIDS program received $6.4 million. CDC Caribbean Regional Office spent approx. $1.5mil in FY-07 on HIV/AIDS programs in the region. This excludes CDC Guyana and CDC Haiti who have bilateral programs and whose budgets are significantly higher than ours. OURISMAN