The Workshop brought together sub-regional, national and local stakeholders involved in developing education sector responses to health-related issues including HIV&AIDS in the five Greater Mekong sub-Region countries of Cambodia, China, Lao PDR, Thailand and Vietnam, and in Bhutan, which sent an observer team. Planning of the Workshop included input from country planning teams as well as several development partners, and adopted the principles of ‘greater involvement of people living with or affected by HIV/AIDS’ (GIPA). A total of 108 participants attended including delegates representing the national Ministries of Health, Education and Women’s Affairs, National AIDS Commissions, teacher training authorities, and agencies of environmental health and water supply, as well as 20 civil society groups and international organizations (see Participants List in Appendix 4). Key national/sub-regional/international experts were in attendance, who not only provided a source of relevant knowledge and experience, but also played an important facilitation and guidance role.

The Workshop followed a general format that has been refined over time by the UNAIDS Inter-Agency Task Team on Education (IATT) Working Group to Accelerate the Education Sector Response to HIV&AIDS and that now reflects feedback received from organizing committees and participants. The agenda for the week (see Appendix 5) was developed to achieve a suitable balance between plenary sessions and group work. For adult learners, maximizing time in group work has been shown to be the most effective way of ensuring a set of definite deliverables (plans, strategies and decisions) upon the completion of the Workshop.

There were clearly some areas of knowledge where more formal information sharing methods were necessary. Where this information was specific to a technical area, it was delivered within the specific Thematic Group (TG) to the team of specialists interested in that topic. The aim of the Thematic Groups was to provide an opportunity for smaller expert groups to discuss, in depth, the key issues, good practice and priority actions in the specific thematic areas. Although each TG focused on issues directly related to specific areas, emphasis was also given to the cross cutting issues of: (i) the gender dimensions of school health and nutrition programming; (ii) the development of effective partnerships; (iii) improving donor harmonization; and (iv) increasing efficiency and availability of resources.

The four Thematic Groups focused on the following:
1) Policy: Development of health-related school policies, including those that address HIV&AIDS issues. Key issues included:
    • In practice, how Ministries have worked together to implement activities
    • How MoEs have been able to mainstream activities
    • Both the content and the process of implementing policy
2) School Environment: Promotion of a safe and supportive school environment (including access to safe water and adequate sanitation, and a healthy psychosocial environment). Key issues included:
    • How to provide access to safe water and sanitation
    • How to provide a supportive school environment including psychosocial support and safety issues
3) Health Education: Skills based health education (including curriculum development, life skills training, teaching and learning materials). Key issues included:
    • How to promote positive behaviors with a focus on life skills
4) Health and Nutrition Services: Schools-based health and nutrition services (including deworming, micronutrient supplementation, school feeding and malaria treatment/referral). Key issues included:
    • How to achieve sustainable national level deworming programs
    • Identifying emerging issues in school feeding and determining how best to address them

In a very few cases the information was so important or so cross-cutting that it was addressed to the whole group of participants in plenary (e.g. gender, mainstreaming, scaling up, financing, partnerships). Plenary presentation and discussion of the findings and recommendations of each TG provided regional and country teams with information and guidance that will assist them in the development of more systematic and comprehensive strategies to sustainably integrate and scale up school health and nutrition programs and the education sector response to HIV&AIDS.

Each country team was asked to fill out a pre-Workshop Questionnaire in order to give a snapshot of the current situation in relation to SHN and HIV&AIDS at country level. The organizing committee worked with the country teams during the Workshop to facilitate completion of the Questionnaires and to produce a document recording a comparative view of the responses (see Appendix 6).

During the course of the workshop, the country teams were asked to make presentations. In particular, the presentations concerned the Current Situation (given at the beginning of the workshop and incorporating relevant information from the Questionnaire) and the Response Plan (given at the end). Information was provided in a comparative manner so that participants could easily see the areas of similarity and difference between what these countries/regions/districts are doing or plan to do.

The Workshop process was completed by an offer of ongoing technical support for planning and implementation of activities at country level through: ongoing development partner initiatives in the region that are seeking to harmonize SHN activities; and sub-regional communication and support networks.