(as prepared for delivery)

• Dr. Ly Penhsun, Director of the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Dermatology and STD (NCHADS)
• Dr. Christian Pitter, Chief of Party of HIV Innovate and Evaluate project
• Distinguished guests, ladies, and gentlemen

It is my great pleasure to be here today to welcome you to the final workshop for the USAID HIV Innovate and Evaluate Project.

In the past decade, Cambodia has established itself as a global leader in the fight against HIV/AIDS, sharply reducing infection rates and successfully providing treatment to over 80 percent of those who need it. The flipside to that success is the fact that donor support and funding for the national program is declining. It is more critical than ever to ensure that domestic financing for HIV is secured and used efficiently in order to prevent any future reemergence of the disease. The good news is that the Global Fund grant that begins this year will provide funding to scale up several of the innovative interventions that PEPFAR has supported. This includes the peer-driven initiative, or PDI+. Another is the Community-based Prevention Care and Support approach. A revised and more efficient outreach work model – including social media – has also been funded in the new Global Fund grant that will begin in early 2018. However, there is still a need to do more. As Cambodia moves towards virtual elimination of HIV, it becomes ever more important to know what elements of the national program are producing the desired results and which elements require adjustment. Evaluating innovative approaches to programming and finding efficiencies take on heightened importance. This is where research and evaluation play critical roles. The USAID HIV Innovate and Evaluate Project did just that by providing relevant information to Cambodia's decision-makers at the policy, implementation, and community levels.

This morning, we will hear the findings of the last evaluation among a total of nineteen performed by the USAID HIV Innovate and Evaluate Project. We will hear about the Boosted Integrated Active Case Management – or B-IACM -  approach. The initial evaluation of this system in Battambang and Siem Reap showed that it was associated with increases in case detection and treatment enrollment compared with the previous approach.

We will learn about the scale-up of B-IACM across Cambodia, comparing its implementation in Phnom Penh, provincial town ODs, and provincial non-town ODs. We can expect to hear about how effective the integrated case management approach has been. We will also hear about what clients thought about their access to, and satisfaction with, HIV services. Equally important – we will learn what health care providers thought about their service delivery. Finally we will hear about the cost-effectiveness of B-IACM for programs in provincial non-town ODs.

The goal of this workshop and the HIV Innovate and Evaluate project overall has been to share the knowledge with decision-makers and provide an opportunity to consider the implications of what we have learned. It is hoped that the knowledge shared in this forum will support the goals set forth by the national program and its partners.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the HIV Innovate and Evaluate Project team for their great efforts over the past four and a half years. As I mentioned earlier, this project has completed nineteen rigorous evaluations that cover a broad range of aspects of the USAID HIV/AIDS Flagship Project and the Cambodia national HIV response, illuminating areas of strength and areas for improvement. They have shared the findings of these evaluations through well-attended and well-appreciated dissemination events. We’re hoping that, through this project, the response to HIV in Cambodia can continue to be informed by high quality research and evaluation that can most effectively advance us toward a sustained elimination. We look forward to NCHADS and  NGOs playing an ever stronger role in formulating that research and using its findings to shape a successful response.

On behalf of USAID and other U.S. government agencies supported by PEPFAR, we thank NCHADS, the HIV Flagship project and the HIV Innovate and Evaluate Project for their collaboration and contributions. I hope that their work will continue to inform and guide the national HIV response in the country.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you today and for your continued partnership in Cambodia’s HIV response.