Funders

Ritshidze is the world’s largest community-led monitoring system in the world. It was developed by the Treatment Action Campaign & other activists to hold the South African government and aid agencies to account to fix our broken public healthcare system. While we have the world’s largest HIV treatment programme, nearly 2 million people are still not on lifesaving ARVs, having either never started, or started and then stopped. This retention crisis is directly linked to the crisis in our clinics. Through Ritshidze we systematically collect data at 450+ clinics every quarter with 140+ staff members. In real time, our dashboard takes the data uploaded by Ritshidze monitors and presents it using graphs and tables. We use this to generate community-owned solutions and harness this for advocacy and feedback to facilities as well as district, provincial, and national duty bearers.

Since our inception in 2018 we have surveyed 333,507 public healthcare users, 191,893 people living with HIV, and 44,942 members of key populations about the state of services, and carried out 462 in depth interviews. We know the issues people are facing on the ground. Ritshidze is an essential tool to fix our public health system and reach the UNAIDS 95-95-95. Since starting monitoring, we have seen a reduction in average waiting times by more than 2.5 hours, an increase of 42% of people on 3 month supply of medicines, a 56% increase in facilities offering PrEP, a 47% increase in people using pick-up points for ARV collection, and much much more.

Ritshidze’s work is crucial, especially now, as the sudden suspension of PEPFAR funding is already disrupting HIV treatment services as healthcare workers have been pulled out of facilities and drop-in centres have closed. This will only exacerbate the existing crisis in our health system. To assess the immediate impact, Ritshidze plans to conduct a rapid survey focusing on potential changes in: waiting times (a major source of dissatisfaction and reason people disengage already); the efficiency of clinic paper filing systems (that can cause additional delays and confusion with lost or missing files), ART/PrEP collection including people being sent away empty handed or possible shortening of supply; the availability of pick-up points to collect ARVs or if people are being sent back to the clinic adding to overcrowding and delays; the availability and quality of HIV testing and counselling or if people are being turned away; clinical consultations for people living with HIV; and other critical service areas.

Leveraging our established presence and community-led monitoring teams, Ritshidze can effectively monitor both existing and emerging issues. We are equipped to collect and input data on a regular basis, providing timely reports that inform advocacy efforts both within South Africa and internationally. However, we urgently need financial support to continue paying our teams during this critical three-month period. This funding will enable us to systematically capture and report on the effects of the funding withdrawal, providing evidence to increase pressure for the funding pause to be reversed.

About RITSHIDZE

“Ritshidze” — meaning “Saving Our Lives” in TshiVenda — has been developed by people living with HIV and activists to hold the South African government and aid agencies accountable to improve overall HIV and TB service delivery.

Partner organisations include the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), the National Association of People Living with HIV (NAPWA), Positive Action Campaign, Positive Women’s Network (PWN) and the South African Network of Religious Leaders Living with and affected by HIV/AIDS (SANERELA+)—in alliance with Health Global Access Project (Health GAP), the Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), and Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law.

CLICK HERE to read more and see where we work.