Russia Media Partnership

Principle actor: Transatlantic Partners Against AIDS
Disease: HIV/AIDS
Focus: awareness, prevention & services
Scale of action (location): national (Russian Federation)

Russia faces one of the fastest growing HIV epidemics in the world today.  Over 1 million Russians are living with HIV. Heterosexual transmission is on the rise, reaching 50% of new cases in some regions in 2006 (up from 4% in 2001).  4 out of 5 of HIV-positive people in Russia are under the age of 30.  4 out of 10 new HIV-positive Russians are young women.

Russian Media Partnership to Combat HIV/AIDS is the media sector’s response to the country’s HIV epidemic. Gazprom-Media and Transatlantic Partners Against AIDS (TPAA) initiated the RMP at the inaugural meeting of the Global Media AIDS Initiative on AIDS (GMAI) at the UN headquarters in January 2004. In 2007, the RMP mobilizes the communication power of over 40 competing media companies to change attitudes and behaviors on HIV/AIDS.

The 2006 GMAI report highlighted the RMP as the most progressive and comprehensive effort on HIV/AIDS by media companies. Russia’s first Country Report on Curbing the HIV Epidemic in 2006 featured the Partnership’s StopAIDS campaign as a critical public awareness initiative. Launched in 2004, the campaign has emerged as one of the largest public health campaigns in Russian history.

Russian Media Partnership to Combat HIV/AIDS
RMP companies invest their communications and marketing expertise as well as distribution channels to implement a comprehensive HIV/AIDS campaign.  RMP includes a cross-market campaign, StopAIDS; integration of HIV/AIDS storylines and messaging into popular entertainment formats; trainings for journalists to improve news and analytical coverage of HIV/AIDS and related issues; comprehensive resources on HIV/AIDS for campaign audiences (www.stopspid.ru); and special initiatives with opinion leaders and celebrities to draw select communities into active participation in the fight against AIDS. 

In 2006, the total amount of placement for the RMP’s StopAIDS campaign was estimated at 8 million USD.  This indicator reached 7.9 million in the first two quarters of 2007.  The StopAIDS campaign, produced by leading advertising agencies since 2004, has reached 62% recognition rate among respondents of an All-Russia survey in July 2007.  14% of those contacted by the campaign took concrete actions to learn more about HIV.  Moreover, campaign audience more frequently accepts personal risk of becoming HIV-positive, takes actions to reduce risk of transmission and are more tolerant towards people living with HIV.

Government
In 2006, Russia increased the federal budget for HIV/AIDS to 100 million USD (20-fold increase over 2005), and committed to further increase in 2007 and 2008.  The funding is primarily earmarked for delivering treatment to those in need.  Prevention component is limited by 5 million USD per year. The new resources have allowed the Ministry of Health to set up a national toll-free hotline on HIV/AIDS.  While the hotline can be improved, it is an important asset both for the population and for the RMP, which acquired the capacity to run a targeted, service promotion campaign in 2007.  Both series of campaign released by the RMP in 2007 focused on driving campaign audiences to concrete resources on HIV information – to the campaign online resource (www.stopspid.ru) and the national hotline.  Over 50 percent of all calls to the hotline in its first month of operation were driven by the RMP’s StopAIDS campaign.

RMP and TPAA are currently in negotiations with the Federal Agency for Monitoring in the Sphere of Consumer Protection and Human Welfare regarding: (1) improvement availability of VCT in government AIDS centers (for a national HIV testing campaign) and (2) improvement of the architecture and content of the national HIV hotline.

Civil society
Russian Media Partnership is managed by Transatlantic Partners Against AIDS (TPAA), a non-profit international organization that has recently merged with the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria.  RMP also actively engages representatives from expert NGOs, NGOs working with youth and communities of people living with HIV/AIDS to ensure (1) appropriateness and correctness of messaging and content in terms of stigma and discrimination of people living with HIV/AIDS, (2) link the broad national campaign with local initiatives that engage young people directly and (3) provide platform for communication for HIV/AIDS experts and representatives of the positive community.

Key Success Factors

• Multiple media partners engaged: ensures sustainability of the campaign as leadership/ownership of participating companies may change
• Engagement of experts in relevant fields: marketing, media & PR, HIV/AIDS
• Broad support/lobby base within the media leadership, private sector representatives and political leaders
• International aspect: funding, technical support, international aspect/platform for local RMP participants to showcase leadership

Future Goals

• Focus government resources on improving capacity of the healthcare system to provide quality prevention, diagnostics and treatment for people, living with HIV/AIDS:
• Training of medical personnel for VCT delivery
• Improvement of national hotline on HIV/AIDS
• Training of personnel to provide treatment, care and support of PLWH
• Engage private sector in Russia to support the RMP by funding implementation costs and expanding reach of the campaign and driving maximum target audience to the improved services.
• Scale up RMP model replication in Ukraine and China.