Mapping HIV and AIDS in Mazabuka

Now this takes me back.  In my early days at SQW I worked on a number of projects where we were commissioned by local councils to map the amount of public sector expenditure flowing into their district or area, and then to try understand which themes (education, health, environment etc.) and and which wards the money was going to.  At the time it felt like a good piece of analysis (with pretty shaded maps too) which could be used by the policy makers in a council to query where the funding was going.  Jump forward 8-9 years and we have started some mapping work in Mazabuka.  Basically we just do not know enough about: what HIV and AIDS activities are taking place in the district; which organisations (Government, private, faith based, community based, NGOs etc.) are working here; and which areas of the district are the organisations and activities occurring.  These may sound like some pretty obvious questions but at the moment we cannot answer them. 

A couple of weeks ago we began piloting this work in Mazabuka by visiting around 15 stakeholders to test the questionnaire with them and to understand their own interest in this type of information.  They have greeted the work with much enthusiasm and want the exercise completed as soon as possible.  At the very least we hope to produce some fancy, interactive maps that show who works where and on what activities in the district.  At the best, and if we can mobilise enough funding, I want to produce a directory of the stakeholder activities and some large scale maps, and then get these hard copies distributed as wide as possible.  With this sort of information we will know: how many organisations are working on HIV and AIDS activities in the district; what are they actually doing; challenge them where we feel duplication is taking place in the type or area of activity; and ask why are some areas seem overwhelmed with activity, whilst others are being missed out.  And then it is a case of updating the information when an organisation arrives or leaves, and repeating the exercise in full each year.