A stakeholders workshop was recently held for public servants, organized by the Ministry of Public Service in collaboration with the National AIDS Commission.

The purpose of the workshop was to share information on progress made to date (for cross fertilization) on HIV and AIDS interventions implemented by the Ministries as well as to map a way forward on mainstreaming HIV and AIDS, to disseminate the Public Service HIV and AIDS Workplace Policy and to build capacity on HIV and AIDS programmes coordination.

The Ministry of the Public Service had, for over six years worked on HIV and AIDS Workplace Policy but had not been disseminated it yet. This was due to the fact that it was within their HR Manual that the Ministry was working on.

The Ministry of the Public Service decided after realizing that line ministries were functioning without proper guidelines on HIV/AIDS to separate the policy from the manual and disseminate it since the manual was taking too long to finalise.

Most Ministries were however already active in issues of HIV and AIDS using all forms of information dissemination to help capacitate their staff and their respective constituencies. Some Ministries pursued programmes that concentrated on care and support for communities.

The general observation was that the policy was well received except for a few pointers here and there which the forum agreed that they can always be amended.