An eight-year HIV/AIDS Prevention Project funded by the World Bank and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) has brought positive results for the community, the society and HIV carriers.

The project, carried out since 2005, also helped draw valuable lessons in receiving and organising the implementation of a social welfare project, Deputy Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long said at the workshop to transfer the project’s management to the National HIV/AID Prevention Programme.

He highlighted the project’s continuity and sustainability as well as lessons from the project’s implementation such as plan making from grassroots level.

At the workshop, the WB’s representative briefed the termination of the participation of WB and DFID in the project and donors’ assessments of Vietnam ’s effective use of funding.

The project empowered localities, which created the sustainability of the project and enabled them to maintain HIV/AIDS prevention activities when it ended. It also built the regulation of a national assessment system.

Over the past eight years of implementation, the 75 million USD project helped reduce harms to HIV carriers from 26 percent in 2005 to 11.6 percent in 2012.

Besides, it helped master training for 72 Vietnamese staff plus assistance for scientific research and epidemic prevention institutions.-VNA