Implementing Comprehensive HIV/STI Programmes with Sex Workers Implementing Comprehensive HIV/STI Programmes with | Page 189

6 Programme Management and Organizational Capacity-building

membership fee? This increases a sense of ownership, but the sum should not be so high as to
exclude sex workers from joining.
• Are there government schemes that may be able to fund specific activities or programmes?

6.7.4 Networking
Developing a strong, successful sex worker organization is as much about relationships as it is about
systems. Networking involves donors, communities, government at both national and local levels,
service providers and NGO networks. Some of the functions of networking are ensuring human
rights, securing comprehensive services for beneficiaries and developing relationships with donors
(see Box 6.9 and also Chapter 1, Section 1.2.8).
Two areas of networking that are especially important for sex worker organizations are engagement
with the state, e.g. politicians, police, health and social entitlement programmes; and engagement
with non-state organizations and institutions.
Engagement with the state
• This is particularly important to enable sex worker programmes to advocate for access to health
services, freedom from discrimination and harassment, protection from and redress for violence,
and securing rights and entitlements as citizens.
• A partner organization working with the sex worker organization on capacity-building may have
the connections to place members of community-led groups on committees that oversee health
programmes, or provide access to politicians and other officials.
• Capacity-building may help sex workers unfamiliar with the structure of formal meetings, or the
protocol for dealing with officials, learn how to participate and engage effectively.

Box 6.9

Case example: Direct engagement by the community
with the government in India
In India in 2010, representatives of sex worker collectives and community groups representing the
transgender community, men who have sex with men and people who inject drugs were invited to give
presentations to a consultation meeting of the country’s Planning Commission, which formulates the
Government of India’s five-year plans. Their access to this high-level government body through its Civil
Society Window Initiative was facilitated by the Centre for Advocacy Research, a nongovernmental
organization that was working with the community groups on advocacy issues.
The representatives, who came from seven Indian states, talked about the challenges they faced in
accessing government schemes and social entitlements, and presented recommendations for improved
access to services including health, pensions, education and livelihood options. The following year these
recommendations were incorporated in the Planning Commission’s Approach Paper to the 12th Five Year
Plan. The paper called for targeted programmes for communities that suffer discrimination because of their
social and cultural identity, including sex workers and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals.
The testimony of the community groups to the Planning Commission helped boost their credibility with
the government as advocates and opened doors for them to engage in policy dialogue with government
agencies responsible for women’s and children’s development, rural livelihoods and legal services.
Following state-level consultations, government departments were poised in September 2013 to issue
new regulations facilitating access to social benefits for sex workers, men who have sex with men and
transgendered persons.

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