Ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights and HIV prevention, treatment, care and support are essential for development, including in the post 2015 agenda. However, while there are many separate sexual and reproductive health (SRH) related and HIV-related indicators, a key challenge has been the lack of internationally agreed indicators to measure progress in linking SRH and HIV.
In 2012, a Steering Group of SRH and HIV linkages and M&E experts, which included country, donor, UN agency and civil society representatives, launched an initiative to assess existing indicators and related assessment tools and provide recommendations for a compendium of indicators that can be used to measure SRH and HIV integration and linkages at the policy, systems and service delivery levels as well as at output, outcome and impact levels.
The Steering Group developed a theory of change, which was used to identify and assess indicators and related assessment tools to measure SRH and HIV linkages and provide a thematic structure to the compendium. The areas in the theory of change can broadly be categorised as outputs (enabling environment, integrated service delivery and stronger health systems), outcomes (reduced stigma and discrimination and gender-based violence, increased access to and utilisation of services, improved efficiency) and impact (improved health, human rights and quality of life).
This Compendium is built around the different themes in the theory of change and includes a focused set of indicators and related assessment tools that have direct and indirect relevance to tracking the links between SRH and HIV programmes at national and sub-national levels. Related assessment tools are used to capture progress where individual indicators are not available. As efforts to link these programmes continue to gain traction in countries around the world, the compendium will evolve to include additional indicators and related assessment tools that provide useful data on critical issues related to SRH and HIV linkages.
